Increase the Chances of Employment Success for Neurodiverse Young Adults

Choose Well, My Friends

Getting through college is tough. Less than half of all college students at four-year colleges finish in four years. The reality is that most students need six years to graduate. The six-year graduation rate at a public college is 67.4%, and at private colleges, it’s 77.5% But it turns out that getting through college isn’t enough.

After those kids limp across the graduation finish line and take the obligatory pictures with cap and gowns, most don’t find college-level work. They find jobs that don’t require a college degree. They’re manning the desk at Enterprise Car Rental franchise or fulfilling orders for full figured bathing suits at a Lands’ End phone call center.

Recent studies show that fifty-two percent of college grads are underemployed a year after graduation. And those numbers don’t budge much over time. Ten years later, 45 percent of college graduates are underemployed. (Check out Apt. 11D, for the full college and employment picture.)

If things are tough for typical college students, the college-to-employment pipeline for neurodiverse young adults is clogged with weeds and clumps of despair. Only a lucky few are making it through the system.

Not properly prepared academically and dealing with other problems, most autistic students do not attend college at all. 32 percent of all students with autism attend a 2-year college, and 17 percent attend a 4-year college. However, those college-bound students have a great deal of trouble completing their degrees, due to struggles with social-emotional issues, anxiety, and depression. Only 34 percent of autistic students complete college in six years.

Let’s go over those numbers again. 17 percent of autistic students attend a four-year college. Of those, only 34 percent gradate in SIX years. Then those lucky few try to get a job. Only 15 percent of autistic college graduates are able to find work. A whopping 85% of college grads affected by autism are unemployed, compared to the national unemployment rate of 4.5%.

Nation-wide, a very small percentage of autistic people attend college, finish college, and then find an appropriate job.

Horrific, right? Parents are probably not hearing those numbers from their high schools, because the high schools don’t want to deal with packs of hysterical, litigious parents. They hope that parents only realize out this reality much, much later.

Through my work with autism college consultants and parents, I’ve heard many anecdotal stories to back up those numbers. Parents tell me that their students, who earned BAs from highly selective private colleges, are unemployed and playing video games in the basement.

These parents made several mistaken assumptions. They thought there were a huge number of autism-friendly jobs out there (there aren’t). They thought that a BA in history was going to automatically lead to a job (it doesn’t). They thought that being smart mattered more than social skills (it doesn’t).

I think the least prepared parents are those who focused on their child’s academic strengths and never self-identified as autism parents. They never did their homework about government benefits or found local resources. Some refuse to even say that their kids are autistic.

Every autism parent, regardless of their student’s cognitive abilities, should be aware of the statistics and needs to manage this situation by making noise, readjusting expectations, creating a plan B, and encouraging practical majors.

Make Noise. Autism parents and nonprofits need to bang the drum on this problem and demand the media responsibly cover the poor college and employment outcomes for your adults with autism. I don’t want to watch news features that highlight one company that hires three autistic individuals. I want folks to understand the full scope of the autism unemployment problem. If people don’t talk about it, nobody will address the issues.

Readjust Expectations About College. Even if college doesn’t help our kids get jobs, it is still an amazing place for growth. For the students that can manage college, they’ll learn how to socialize with peers, manage stress, and gain greater independent skills.

Unless parents have a ton of money in a 529 that has to get used up, I wouldn’t pay for an expensive college that would lead to a great deal of student debt. The experiences at a local community college can be just as valuable as a $80K private college.

Also, it might be better to put off college for a few years. There’s no law that says that college has to start at age 18. Everybody does college differently. If maturity will increase the likelihood of success at college, then please wait a few years.

Have a Great Plan B. Prepare for both the best case scenario (employment, independence) and the worst case scenario (unemployed, needing support). That might mean completing the paperwork for government support, while also looking at colleges. That’s what I did. It worked out for us.

Choose VERY practical majors. I frequently talk to parents of autistic adults, who identify their kids are Aspies. Their kids typically major in History and Political Science, because they love maps and dates. School was these kids’ happy place, and the parents love to tell me how smart their kids are. Despite holding degrees from excellent schools, a few years after graduation they’re still unemployed.

Those kids are excellent at memorizing facts and mastered the social skills of a classroom. Hell, some of them go on, get their PhDs, and become professors. When I worked full time at universities, I saw those types all the time. But unless your student plans on getting a PhD and becoming a professor, they’re going to need to rethink their college majors.

All students are struggling to find jobs now. I’ve met students who had to go to a trade school after getting their BAs, because the job market is so terrible. For kids with autism, the job market is even worse.

On top of having impractical majors, many autistic young people struggle with employment, because they can’t get through the interview process. Open ended questions — what are your long term goals? what would you say are your greatest weaknesses? — are tough for them. Or they get fired for inappropriate work behavior.

At Steve’s last job, the guys who programmed the algorithms that undergird the Wall Street stock market and the entire world economy used to annoy their co-workers, because they would eat food and candy on other people’s desks. They would bring math textbooks into the bathroom with them for some light reading on the toilet. Luckily, those guys were really good their jobs, so nobody fired them, but not all companies are so tolerant. Typically, tech jobs have a higher tolerance for weirdness in tech jobs.

Because the obstacles for employment are so high, I would highly, highly encourage that autistic college students focus on math, technology, or engineering. It increases the chances of employment. Those fields have many openings, and they tolerate eccentric behaviors. Not every kid, neurotypical or not, enjoys that kind of work, but if there’s even the slimmest of interest and talent in this area, I would encourage it.