Issues and Challenges :

Students with disabilities come to college with the same challenges and concerns as students without disabilities, and they come with challenges and concerns related to their disability. Separating from home, developing autonomy, defining one's identity, falling in love, and creating a career path are certainly among the challenges for students with disabilities. But these students must also encounter and adjust to other challenges, such as moving about a physical environment that was not built with them in mind (Have you ever looked around this campus and tried to figure out how you would go
from your office to the cafeteria if you were in a wheel chair?).

Some must adjust to a social environment biased toward verbal communication. What would it be like to attend a class that requires you to discuss issues aloud in class if you were unable to speak clearly?

Many of our students have not been around others with disabilities, so while the student with a disability may have overcome the looks or stares in his/her hometown, he or she must now deal with thousands of peers who will begin staring again. Perhaps the greatest challenge for many students with disabilities is the struggle to share with others their need to have accommodating while not being treated as different or special.