THECB advisory council flags data gaps for students with IDD as enrollment climbs, sets summer report timeline

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) Advisory Council for Postsecondary Education for Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities met April 4, 2025, by Zoom and at THECB offices to review subcommittee findings, discuss how institutional reporting undercounts many students with IDD, and set a schedule for a board report due this summer.

The council’s discussion focused on data and reporting practices used by colleges and universities and on recommendations for ensuring continuing-education and noncredit programs are included in state counts. The issue matters because council members said current reporting methods risk undercounting students with autism and other IDD in statewide figures that inform policy and program planning.

Linda Litzinger, who opened the meeting as the convening council member, said the council is preparing a multi-committee report for THECB and outlined a timeline for drafts and internal review. “The goal was to try to have the final draft for us by July 1,” THECB Director for Student Success Wayland Matoir said during the meeting, describing internal review and an August deadline for editor review ahead of fall board materials.

Subcommittees summarized work underway. The Best Practices Committee is preparing a survey for postsecondary IDD programs in Texas to document services across categories such as academics, employment supports, independent living and family engagement. The Standards Committee is aligning committee findings with Texas Education Agency (TEA) standards and national evidence reviews used in TEA reporting.

The Data and Financial Aid committee presented trends and limitations in THECB data. Sharon Wong, assistant director of Data Management and Research at THECB, reviewed how institutions submit student-level CBM reports and explained the agency identifies students marked with autism/IDD on specific CBM fields. Wong said the current statewide enrollment tables are drawn from CBM submissions that generally capture semester-credit enrollments and noted that other CBM records exist for continuing-education reporting.

Council members who run continuing-education IDD programs told the group those students often are not captured in the common CBM extracts. Sue (identified as a registrar contact for Houston Community College’s VAST Academy) told the council that many IDD program participants are enrolled in continuing-education or CEU courses and “our numbers are not being captured” when THECB requests only semester-credit (SCH) data. A program director at another institution described “shadow courses” and other local class codes that may not appear in the CBM extract used for the council’s current figures.

Wong acknowledged the gap and said THECB’s data team can rerun numbers using additional CBM reporting codes that capture continuing-education enrollments (referred to in the meeting as CBM OOA and CBM OOC) to see how counts change. “We need to include these other CBM coding, specifically, like, double O A,” Wong said, adding that the data team will work with institutional reporting officials to determine whether those records capture the programs in question and whether additional approvals are required.

Council members also reviewed enrollment and academic outcomes THECB has compiled. Presentations noted that statewide enrollment of students identified as having autism or IDD has increased in recent years; council speakers referenced an increase between 2022 and 2024 (figures cited at different points in the meeting included a 36% and a 44% increase). THECB slides shown by Sharon Wong reported that a majority of those students enroll part time and that, in THECB’s public university extract, a large share of reported enrollment was at the University of North Texas; among community and technical colleges, the largest single district cited in the slides was Blinn College District.

Wong also presented first-year GPA snapshots showing that, among students identified in THECB reporting, many maintain GPAs at or above 3.0 after their first year. She cautioned that the data depend on self-identification and consistent reporting practices across institutions and that small cells can be masked for confidentiality when demographic slices are produced.

The council set an internal schedule for the report: committee sections and a first narrative draft were requested for early May, a consolidated second draft in June, and a July 1 internal draft for THECB staff review; THECB staff aimed to have a final, editor-ready draft by August 1 to meet board-material timelines for the fall. Wayland Matoir described those milestones as “a suggested timeline” to allow THECB staff time for editing and incorporation into board materials.

Guests and announcements included a brief presentation by Bonnie (an educational therapist in private practice) who described individual executive-functioning supports and how coaching can be used before and during students’ first semesters to improve persistence. Student and program directors described local examples such as Austin Community College’s STEPS program and Houston Community College’s VAST Academy. HCC’s VAST Academy announced a parent-and-youth conference for May 17, with registration and stipends for travel listed on the program flyer, and Sam Houston State University said it had secured funding to support rural Texans enrolling in postsecondary programs.

Council business included a motion to adopt minutes from the Jan. 24, 2025 meeting. Christine Price moved to adopt the minutes and Beth Stalby seconded; members recorded their votes by roll call and the motion passed. The council scheduled its next meeting for July 25, 2025, at 10:00 a.m., and later moved to adjourn.

What the council asked THECB staff to do next was procedural and concrete: (1) re-run enrollment counts using additional CBM reporting codes for continuing-education and course-report data to determine the extent of the undercount; (2) include an explicit summary of noncredit/continuing-education enrollments and credential attainment in the draft report; and (3) circulate a first narrative draft in May and a consolidated draft in June for council review before the July internal deadline. Council members emphasized capturing certificate and nondegree outcomes (certificates, workforce credentials) in addition to degree totals the enabling statute requested.

The council’s discussion does not adopt new policy; it directs THECB staff to pursue follow-up data runs and to incorporate broader measures of student success into the report. THECB staff said they will coordinate with institutional reporting officials and THECB’s data management team to determine what additional CBM submissions or recoding (for example, CBM OOA/OOC) are required to produce a more complete statewide picture.