Creating an inclusive fitness community through adaptive training

Students in the UC Berkeley Disability Lab gather to work on projects and inventions aimed at improving accessibility for those living with a disability. The lab also provides students living with disabilities with a sense of community among each other.

Before DOGE cut the program’s funding, Charting My Path for Future Success was helping students with disabilities learn ways to successfully transition from high school to college or the working world with greater self-sufficiency. Before it was canceled, 1,600 high school juniors enrolled in the program, learning how to set goals, take care of themselves and build their confidence and self-determination skills.

In an effort to help lower student debt while benefiting the community, the #CaliforniansForAll College Corps program provides 3,200 students with service jobs and pays them $700 a month.

The North-East Youth Initiative for Development provides hand tricycles to people with disabilities who require wheelchairs to help improve their access to education and other social activities that they wouldn’t be able to access otherwise. Access to the hand tricycles not only increases individuals’ access to activities and school but also increases their independence, self-esteem, and feelings of inclusion. So far 50 people have benefited from this program.

Girlsforhealth helps girls interested in furthering their education who are unable to access a nursing education, pays for their school, and provides essentials and a monthly stipend. At the end of their education, the girls are employed at a workplace back in their communities to fill staff shortages.

Community colleges were originally designed to be affordable and accessible, yet the myriad pressures on students means that the best intentions often don’t lead to positive results. But the University of Central Florida and its partners are proving a new model called DirectConnect—heavy on individual attention and clear academic goals—that paves a surer path.

The Yale Prison Education Initiative allows cohorts of 12 to 15 people to take credit-bearing college courses and earn a degree while incarcerated. The program now offers two-year associate’s degrees and four-year bachelor’s degrees in three different prisons across Connecticut.

Tribal colleges like Tohono O’odham Community College provide an accessible route for indigenous students to pursue higher education, with tuition waivers available for students from federally-recognized tribes. Tohono O’odham’s enrollment has grown from about 700 in 2019 to more than 1,200 last year, but funding for tribal colleges is in jeopardy due to proposed federal budget cuts.

EarlyBird, a dyslexia screening program run by the South Central Board of Cooperative Educational Services, screened about 200 children for signs of dyslexia last year to connect them with extra help in the classroom. The program is already proving to be effective in the school districts participating in it and it’s set to expand to more schools during the 2024-2025-school year.

Some public universities are sending acceptance letters to students who meet certain academic criteria before they apply to college in an effort to fill college rosters in the face of declining high school populations. These “direct admissions programs proactively reach out to students to let them know what their next steps are if they want to attend college, eliminating the need for fees and complicated applications and helping make higher education more accessible.