General Discussion

Collar, the University of Chicago physics professor, said that part of what his exams are designed to assess is the ability to solve problems in a certain amount of time. But now many of his students are in a separate room, with time and a half or even double the allotted time to complete the test. “I feel for the students who are not taking advantage of this,” he told me. “We have a two-speed student population.”

The surge itself is undeniable. Soon, some schools may have more students receiving accommodations than not, a scenario that would have seemed absurd just a decade ago. Already, at one law school, 45 percent of students receive academic accommodations. Paul Graham Fisher, a Stanford professor who served as co-chair of the university’s disability task force, told me, “I have had conversations with people in the Stanford administration. They’ve talked about at what point can we say no? What if it hits 50 or 60 percent? At what point do you just say ‘We can’t do this’?” This year, 38 percent of Stanford undergraduates are registered as having a disability; in the fall quarter, 24 percent of undergraduates were receiving academic or housing accommodations.

As more elite students get accommodations, the system worsens the problem it was designed to solve. The ADA was supposed to make college more equitable. Instead, accommodations have become another way for the most privileged students to press their advantage.