The Prevalence of Autistic College Students in the United States

How many autistic college students are in the United States? Research to date has notspecifically addressed this seemingly straightforward question. Yet, an answer may be critical tothe advancement of research, policy, and practice related to autistic students in higher education.This paper addresses three related but distinct questions about autistic students’ collegeenrollment within the United States: 1) What percentage of autistic high school students go on tocollege? 2) What percentage of students registered with their postsecondary institutions’Disability Services Offices are autistic? 3) What percentage of enrolled undergraduates areautistic? To answer these questions, we examined more than 700 publications, reviewed morethan a dozen common survey instruments used at postsecondary institutions, and pulled datafrom several federal datasets. We assessed each of these sources and synthesized their findings togenerate a range of estimates regarding the prevalence of autistic students in higher education.Considering only those studies for which we held moderate or high confidence regarding thequality and generalizability of their data, the best available evidence suggests 42.9% – 47.0% ofautistic high school students continue on to college, 2.8% – 4.0% of college students registeredwith their schools’ Disability Service Offices are autistic, and 0.3% – 4.7% of all undergraduatesare autistic. Ultimately, our calculations suggest there are likely between 135,400 and 286,254autistic undergraduates currently attending college in the United States. These estimates can beused by researchers, policymakers, and educators to highlight the importance of attending to theinterests, needs, experiences, and outcomes for autistic students.