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Increasingly across the United States, institutions of higher education (IHE) are offering a wide array of postsecondary educational (PSE) opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities (ID). As more students with ID aspire to college, it is incumbent upon IHEs to engage in rigorous program evaluation to assess student outcomes and identify factors that foster student success. The Think College (TC) Standards, Quality Indicators, and Benchmarks provide a unifying conceptual framework that helps to focus research and program evaluation efforts. In this article we describe use of the TC Standards to evaluate an inclusive PSE program for students with ID at a large, urban university. We report preliminary outcome data and discuss how Standards-based evaluation can both guide local program improvement and contribute to the evidence base of best practices in the field. Using this accumulated knowledge, students and families will be able to make more informed educational choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though collaboration is listed as one of the key elements in successful service delivery, there is little empirical data on the effectiveness of these relationships (Scott, 1996). In Virginia, a group of concerned stakeholders established a consortium representing a wide spectrum of higher education programs, state agencies, secondary education personnel, advocacy groups, and students with disabilities to address systematic issues confronting our colleges and universities. This paper describes the collaborative process developed and implemented to address pressing issues facing students with disabilities in higher education. This process, based on Melaville and Blank's (1991) five principles of collaboration, was adopted by the group to determine the effectiveness of their activities as measured by these five principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a demonstration program,Transition and Postsecondary Education Programs for Students with Intellectual Disability (TPSIDs) and accompanying National Coordinating Center created by U.S. Congress in 2008. Topics discussed include the awarding of these programs to institutes of higher education seeking to validate an emerging pathway to increased integrated competitive employment and learning and the need to discern long term fiscal impacts on higher education institutions.