Grants and Scholarships for Intellectual Disabilities from TPSID

Intellectual Disability Scholarships

If you are intellectually disabled, and you wish you could attend college, you need to apply to colleges that received TPSID funding to apply to their grants and scholarships for intellectual disabilities. TPSID is Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities.

In October of 2010, $10.9 million was set aside by the United States Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, for the purpose of providing 28 grants for two federal programs designed to help people with intellectual disabilities to obtain a postsecondary education. These funds are granted to 27 different educational institutions, all of which are either two year or four year schools.

While the funds were granted to the schools, and not to individuals, individuals will definitely benefit. First, many of these schools will create scholarship or grant opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities, using a portion of these funds. Overall, however, the funds are designed to create programs to help these individuals. These disability programs will include support systems for individuals for academics, social activities, internships, independent living, work based learning, and more – but this does not guarantee that your college education will be paid for with these funds – just that such support systems will be made available to you, as a student, but there may also be new intellectual disability scholarships and grants for the disabled because of these funds as well.

The schools that you should look into include the University of Alaska-Anchorage, the University of Arizona, California State University – Fresno, University of California at Los Angeles, West Kern Community College District, Colorado State University, University of Delaware, the University of South Florida – St. Petersburg, University of Hawaii, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Kentucky, Louisiana State University, Central Lakes College, University of Rochester, Bergen Community College, College of New Jersey, Western Carolina University, Minot State University, Ohio State University, Kent State University, College of Charleston, University of Tennessee, Houston Community College, University of Vermont, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Massachusetts – Boston, and Highline Community College.

When you contact these schools for information, be sure to ask if they have any grants or disability scholarships that stem from TPSID specifically, as these are the grants or scholarships that may be the easiest for you to obtain. Also ask how TPSID is going to benefit you, personally, even if they do not have additional scholarships for the disabled that stem from TPSID. If there are no TPSID related grants, ask about other grants or scholarships for intellectual disabilities that you may be eligible for to help pay for school.

TPSID is a brand new program, so while some schools will immediately start offering scholarships for the intellectually disabled based on those available funds, other schools will not start this immediately, but may do so in the future. Even if funds for college are not available to you, because the program exists, there may be other funding options open to you as well. After all, these schools need students with intellectual disabilities to fill their program, and to continue to receive those funds, and this works in your favor.

This makes them more likely to find or create scholarship or grant opportunities for the intellectually challanged (also referred as mental retardation scholarships) to help you pay for your college education – they need you as much as you need them if they expect these programs to succeed. Be sure to check with all of the schools that are participating, because some may offer tuition free programs due to this being a model program, but you won’t know this unless you ask. You also need to find out from each individual school what their definition of an intellectual disability is, to make sure that you qualify for their program.

For more information about Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID) visit: scholarships for intellectual disabilities.