This contribution presents biographical data from the European Science Foundation project Quali-TYDES, a collaborative research project performed since 2010 by Universities from Ireland, Austria, Spain and the Czech Republic. The project analysed the experiences of persons with disabilities at the age between 20 and 30. It is a generation, most born in the 1980ies, and educated in a time of shifts in the educational sector in all involved countries. This presentation in this symposium will solely focus on the narratives of those persons among the interviewees, who had access to tertiary education systems. Using the life course model of Mark Priestley and Sonali Shah the paper will discuss which institutional pathways facilitated the access to higher education, which turning points could be identified in the individual biographies and which resources and capital was activated. So the data show that economic, social and cultural capital, including family resources, advocacy and social networks, have more influence on the educational career than institutional provisions, which often stay at a low level. The analysis will mainly focus on data from Austria, with reference to data from the other countries involved.