Universal Design for Instruction A New Paradigm for Adult Instruction in Postsecondary Education

Postsecondary education has experienced rapid change in its student population. College students with learning disabilities (LD) represent a growing presence on college cam-puses across the country. Traditional means of meeting the learn-ing needs of college students with LD through retrofitted changes and accommodations to classroom instruction have proven lim-ited. Universal Design for Instruction (UDI) offers a new paradigm for approaching equal educational access. This article will describe UDI and discuss its implications for enhancing learning for students with learning disabilities and other diverse learners. THE INFORMATION AGE IS MAKING POSTSECONDARY education a personal and national necessity. For example, in 1999 students who graduated from college earned, on aver-age, between 58 % and 92 % more than those just graduating from high school. More than 15 million students enrolled in postsecondary education during 2000—about two of every three high school graduates (U.S. Department of Education