1. OP-ED (789 words)
From: Neil Peterson
Chairman, The Edge Foundation
www.edgefoundation.org
2017 Fairview Avenue East, Suite I
Seattle, WA 98102
(206) 910-7515 / (888) 718-8886
npeterson@edgefoundation.org
The hidden crisis of college drop-out rates
College enrollments are at record levels, and projected to continue skyrocketing
through 2016, but the shameful secret of higher education is that one-third of
undergraduates drop out in their first year and only half of all college students complete
college.The truth is, colleges are not doing enough about retention rates, and that short-
sightedness has potentially enormous consequences affecting not only our society and
economy, but our competitive position in the global marketplace.
Every student deserves to be given the opportunity to succeed, yet colleges
traditionally dismiss concerns about drop-out rates as having more to do with high
schools’ inadequate academic preparation, family income, or students’ poor efforts and
performance rather than any factors inherent to the institutions themselves.
One segment of students, particularly at risk for failure, is being under-served and
often ignored by the very educational institutions required by law to ease their academic
challenges.
Nearly 8 million U.S. children have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD), a complex, neurological disorder affecting the brain’s executive-functioning

2. capacity. Many students with ADHD are very bright and inventive, extremely creative
and have tremendous energy. But ADHD students have lower GPAs, are more likely to
experience academic probation, and are only one-third as likely to graduate as other
students. Academic challenges for ADHD students include difficulties with sustaining
attention in class, note-taking, reading comprehension, completing assignments and
exams on time, and organizing and persisting at long-term projects.
The federal Americans with Disabilities Act requires educational institutions to
make accommodations for students with ADHD. These might include priority
registration; providing designated note-takers; extra time to complete tests and courses;
alternative exam formats; and quieter, less-distracting testing locations.
Given that ADHD is estimated to affect 10 percent of all U.S. children, any major
university with a student population of 40,000 may have up to 4,000 undergraduates with
ADHD. Yet only 143 of those students will have registered with the campus disability-
services office, which means only 3% of the eligible students have access to assistance.
A number of factors contribute to the persistence of this deplorable state of affairs:
1) Only half of all children with ADHD have been diagnosed.
2) Students desiring accommodations must go through a complicated “self-
declaration” procedure with campus disability offices to obtain an official letter of
eligibility, a daunting process for students with problems completing tasks and following
through.

3. 3) Instructors might refuse to grant the accommodations, requiring the disability
office to intervene.
4) Many students, fearing the stigma still attached to ADHD, are reluctant to open
themselves to be ridiculed as lazy, stupid or crazy. (Despite the stereotypical assumption
that ADHD students are unintelligent underachievers, ADHD is associated with high
intelligence, creativity and energy levels.)
5) For a variety of reasons ranging from low budgets and staffing to bureaucratic
indifference, incompetence and inertia, most college and university disability-service
programs do an abysmal job of informing eligible students about the existence of ADHD
accommodations.
6) ADHD specialists are rare in college-disability offices, and too few institutions
educate or train their faculty to recognize and deal with ADHD issues.
The challenge for ADHD students is getting them the assistance that will help them
perform to their fullest academic potential and matriculate. The challenge for higher-
education institutions, coping with budget restrictions, revenue shortfalls and increased
costs, is to improve retention, reduce dropout rates and increase graduation rates.
One way to accomplish this is for institutions to do a better job of communicating
to incoming students the importance of getting early help before it is too late. Providing
free ADHD testing to all incoming freshmen is another good step. But these are stop-gap
remedies.

4. A recent innovation is supplying students with a personal coach professionally
trained in ADHD-management skills and coping strategies. Tutors are common in higher
education, but coaching for ADHD students is still a nascent field; few colleges are able
to provide students with coaches, or even know where to find them.
Substantial anecdotal evidence indicates coaching can be an extremely effective
solution for students, but few scientific studies have confirmed it. That’s why the Edge
Foundation recently launched a $1 million, nationwide study on the effectiveness of
coaching for ADHD college students. The study results won’t be available until 2010, but
colleges shouldn’t wait until then to provide ADHD students with this important assistive
resource. By helping students learn critical skills such as planning, organizing,
prioritizing, follow up, and time management, ADHD coaches can have a dramatic effect
on academic performance and students’ social integration into college life.
Students that fail academically due to problems with ADHD affect more than
university budgets and college-retention rates. When we lose their intellectual, scientific
and economic contributions to our nation’s growth, we’re sacrificing not only their
futures, but our own as well.
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Neil Peterson is chairman of The Edge Foundation (www.edgefoundation.org), a national nonprofit that
connects students to ADHD coaches and provides coaching scholarships and loans. He can be reached
at npeterson@edgefoundation.org.