The college gym is packed with employers offering work opportunities, but Jimmy Myers, a freshman at Drexel University, has come to the career fair to speak with just one of them: the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. A self-described “train nerd,” Myers has been closely tracking progress on the railway’s trolley modernization project. And he’s eager to share his expertise with the SEPTA recruiter as an autistic student.

But the recruiter is late, so Myers paces the crowded, noisy gym, checking the time on his Swiss Railways watch — a wrist-sized replica of the clocks in Swiss train stations. For a few minutes, he waits at a table that Drexel’s Center for Autism and Neurodiversity has set up in a back corner of the gym as a haven from the sensory overload.

Today’s college graduates are entering one of the tightest job markets in years, as companies scale back entry-level hiring amid economic uncertainty and the explosion of artificial intelligence. Just under a third of 2025 graduates — and fewer than half of 2024 graduates — have found full-time employment related to their education, according to one recent report.

The market is even tougher for young adults with autism, who have long had one of the highest rates of joblessness among individuals with disabilities. Even before the hiring slowdown, more than 30 percent of autistic college graduates were unemployed, and about a quarter of those who did have jobs were in office- and administration-support roles, one study found.

One key reason: Autistic students often have trouble navigating traditional hiring processes, including interviews, which favor neurotypical candidates.

To help autistic students like Myers land jobs, some colleges are offering career-readiness classes and one-on-one career coaching; some are also working with employers to make their hiring and employment practices more inclusive. Drexel, which began providing career prep to students in its autism support program in 2017, has one of the oldest programs.

Read the full article about supporting autistic students in finding jobs by Kelly Field at The Hechinger Report.