‘Decisions are often made in a matter of days’
Brown University students can easily obtain an accommodation for a purported disability – and 18 percent have already done so, according to the campus newspaper.
Almost 1 in 5 students at the Ivy League university quality for accommodations in courses.
The Brown Daily Herald gathered the results through a spring 2026 poll, which included 1,275 students, or about 15 percent of the undergraduate population.
The student newspaper reported:
The percentage of students who reported having a disability rose more than 50% over the past decade across a number of schools, the New York Times reported. At certain schools, like Stanford, 38% of students reported having a disability, though not all students who reported having a disability receive accommodations.
The amount of students at Brown requesting accommodations through SAS “continues to grow,” Interim Director of Student Accessibility Services Allen Kropp wrote in an email to The Herald[.]
One reason might be that it is incredibly easy to get an accommodation.
“The process for obtaining accommodations is fairly straightforward,” Kropp told the student nespaper. “We work to make the process as easy as possible, and accommodation decisions are often made in a matter of days.”
Other students backed up this assertion.
“The process of getting accommodations was incredibly easy,” one student told the Daily Herald. “I had the doctor’s note already, and then I scheduled my appointment and they were incredibly helpful, quick and understanding.”
However, some questioned the process.
“A lot of my friends have them, so I just kind of thought more people would,” student Sophia Odato said. “I’ve heard of some people swindling the system to kind of get what they want, but I’ve also heard of people who actually need them.”
Others said they knew of students who were denied requests for accommodations after “gaming the system.”
The use, and possible abuse, of disability accommodations has garnered international and national attention.
A report in the England-based Times reported on how “nearly 40% of Stanford undergraduate students claim they’re disabled.”
As The College Fix previously reported:
Such accommodations are so common and so easy to obtain – nearly 40 percent do — that not requesting one from the elite private university puts students at a disadvantage, student Elsa Johnson wrote.
“… almost no one talks about the system with shame. Rather, we openly discuss, strategise and even joke about it. At a university of savvy optimisers, the feeling is that if you aren’t getting accommodations, you haven’t tried hard enough,” she wrote. “… if you’re not gaming it, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.”
More than half of disability accommodations at the University of California Berkeley are for “psychological/emotional” reasons, The College Fix reported in January.
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