80% of aspies fail out/unemployed after 4+years of college

Post Reply New Topic

In my aspie group, 80% of high functioning aspies are unemployed, living at home or parents pay for rent, and all went college and have either:

1) Fail out of college junior year,
2) Take semesters off, fail, and graduate 2-3 years late
3) Graduate but are unemployed

These guys have been set up failure. They were sent to college without

1) Study skills/Home work habits
2) Social skills/Office etiquette/Team work skills
3) Realistic view of job market
4) Support for depression/anxiety/loneliness

And hence fail out of engineering school to go to art school or a graduate degree in massage therapy. If you weigh the chances of a HF aspie finishing college and getting a job as a professional versus failing out and getting stuck unemployed without a job history and paying for huge college loans. Much better for them to get a job, a stable paycheck, learn to show up on time, to apply and to interview, to pay bills and to know that they can survive on their own. Then, when they have 1-3 under their belt, and a back up source of income, they can go to a college in the field where they have already worked. They should go into paraprofessional work such as HVAC techs, mechanics, hospital assistants, computer techs, low level IT techs or interns, and so on.

Well, it's good to have this information up front. Thanks for providing it.

It makes some sense that going to college would end up in failure, because college is not JUST dealing with bright minds. College is also socializing, dealing with crowds, roommates, difficult professors, stupid rules, not-so-stupid rules, and having to take classes in subjects that you're not even interested in. Putting all of this off until you can actually SEE THE POINT to some of these things is probably not a bad idea at all.

This is why, for younger children who are diagnosed, social skills training is REALLY important. From what you have said, in some ways, social skills will either make or break your college experience.

Really? I'm skeptical.

Is that why Newton, Einstein and Andy Warhol and the rest are such successes?

Well, remember that he prefaced it by saying it was 80% of the group. He's not claiming this applies to 80% of all Aspergians across the board. This would mean that the actual statistics for any HFA are likely lower as the sample is composed only of HFA that have sought group support. Also, if the group is something like five people and it's four out of five then the sample size wouldn't rise to a level of statistical significance.

Overall, this sounds like a good observation about his experience and if the comments can help someone... it's a good thing (to quote a somewhat recently incarcerated culinarian).

That's what I did. Very optimistic about it, too.

You make college sound like high school.

Albert Einstein was a college dropout...

My son is in college. His grades are very good. He's a math and science guy but he's not there for the grades or credits. He's there to continue figuring himself out. He's doing a very good job with learning about when and how to take each step forward and takes on more and more challenges all the time. It's slow but I know he'll continue to thrive.

He can't follow the well trodden NT paths. Last term he was overwelmed by his calculus homework and gave up doing it. I told him it didn't matter. Learning about himself was more important than grades or credits at this time in his life. The purpose of the class was to learn. He did that. He made sure he was at the top of the class, so much ahead that he was teaching other students in the class. He aced his tests, too and never complained or made excuses to the teacher about the homework. He just expected to get a lousy grade. Near the end of the term, she announced in class, while looking at my son, that if it was obvious that some students in the class were learning everything without doing homework, then it wouldn't effect their grades. He got an A.

I like that. He changed one heart and mind to stop being stuck on one way to teach and learn.

Becky, you are a great parent and you have a nice son but all aspies have problems with college loans and unemployment. Is your son an exception to this or does he share some of the problems as the rest of us, and if so, to what extent?

p.s. how is this for an attempt not to sound rude and condescending?

Haha. The attempt comment was good!!

There isn't much out there for my son. His only chance is to take it slow and try to find success on his own terms or nothing. What pisses me off is that when my aspy husband was young, there weren't any good computer science classes so he and a lot of other people who knew computers did their own thing, learned organically about physics, electronics, all the stuff they needed to learn on their own, mentoring each other. Few of them got degrees but they got good jobs, learning on their own terms. They were allowed to be themselves and they were very good at what they did.

Now those days are gone. You are forced to fit into their tunnel vision molds or crash and burn. My husband gets lots of compliments from Ph.d's about how brilliant he is but if he were a young adult now, he'd be one step away from being homeless or on SSI.

So, for my son, we're hoping that we mentor him to build a better mousetrap on his own terms with our support and help him make his own way. His aspy friends have geeky dads like my husband who learned organically, too. I'd like to pull in all the aspies, like the Pied Piper and take them to a place where they can thrive with their wonderfully creative, interesting, entertaining brains.

I think I have too much imagination to settle with conventions. I'll spend a lifetime at a university pursuing happiness.

I believe each person is different and should be given the capacity to think, but not what to think.

I went to college straight out of high school and epic failed, and not at all because I couldn't do the work. Then I went back after holding down a full-time job for a couple of years and did fine. I can definitely see how it could benefit some people to make sure they have the fundamentals of living independently under control before trying to get through college, and this is probably especially true for aspies. But I definitely wouldn't suggest limiting yourself to low-level tech jobs, that's completely ridiculous. Hell, some would even argue that aspies who successfully deal with their personal issues could be in a better position to succeed professionally than NTs.

This is the main reason why I have been working for myself. The NT controlled colleges and industries are usually incompatible with the way our minds work.

Thats the fear I have, getting a degree and being unemployed and not getting into grad school. The last thing I want is to come back home and just mope around. I work really hard, to avoid low grades and flunk out which will jeopardize my chances for the future. I do know an aspie whos probably headed in that direction.

I guess this is kinda skewed since only the people who have problems will come to a support group. Others, who do well just do not feel the need for it.

Just my 2 Eurocents.

That's because it is, unfortunately.