Our college option

I found out about a new option for Joe for college this week.  Up until now, I had pretty much written off college.  I had hoped to maybe get him to take some basic classes at a community college, but full-time, dorm life college I had figured was never going to happen. 

Then this week I found out about a local college that has a program for 18-25 year olds with intellectual or developmental disabilities.  It is a two year program with internships, peer mentors, etc. for 20 students where the kids live on campus in a supervised dorm.  Several of the kids from his past activities are also applying.  Reading over the requirements, I was over the moon -- he met all of the criteria easily.  This was THE program I wanted for Joe and it was in town. 

It is expensive, but we had put aside money in a 529 account and that can only be used for post secondary education.  Except ... that neither of our children were likely to ever go to college.  So now we had this money that was going to be penalized heavily if we were to ever access it again.

Overall this seemed like a match made in heaven.

Until I brought it up to Joe.

The very first words out of his mouth were "I don't want to live in a dorm."

Crap.

Finally after talking to him at length, I figured out the reason was that he was worried there would be fire drills in college.  Nope, no fire drills.  A secondary (but more minor) concern was uniforms.  Nope, no uniforms. 

So now he is excited.  Now we just have to see if he can get in.

Say some prayers, peeps!