LEESBURG, Fla. — Students with disabilities face some of the steepest hurdles in higher education. However, one Central Florida college is making it easier for them to get a head start.
“It turns out what I actually really felt was connection,” said junior William Elfe, describing his experience at Beacon College, a Leesburg school exclusively for neurodivergent students. The school supports students with ADHD, autism, dyslexia and other conditions.
Chrystol Ingram, Assistant Director of Financial Services at Beacon, highlights that a major challenge for students with disabilities is the transition from high school to college. To help with this, Beacon provides the Summer of Success program—a three-week immersive experience. “Be on campus, live on campus, be a college student for three weeks and really feel out what it’s like to manage the responsibilities and needs of being a college student,” Ingram said.
The program usually costs families $4,500. But now, Beacon is the first college in Central Florida to accept Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship to cover that cost. “Students and families now have the opportunity to use those funds toward pre-college planning, which for students with disabilities was probably not a thought in the mind of parents,” Ingram said.
The need is clear: according to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2022, only 37% of students with disabilities reported it to their college.
The scholarship support, Ingram says, ensures “their readiness to matriculate at the collegiate level.” It’s something William Elfe wishes had been available when he was starting out. “I only have a single parent that’s paying for my tuition, as well as all my expenses altogether and summer classes are expensive,” he said.
Beacon College is also the first accredited school in the country to offer bachelor’s degrees exclusively to students with learning disabilities.
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