CW: Ableism
For many disabled students, the transition to college begins with a familiar challenge: proving they are disabled. After years of receiving accommodations in school, many students begin college, and discover that existing documentation is not enough.
Colleges often require additional paperwork, updated evaluations, or new testing before accommodations can be approved, even when disabilities have already been documented for years. The process can be time-consuming, expensive, and frustrating. I know that firsthand.
In 2024, after I raised concerns about my accommodations at Greenfield Community College, the college’s former director of disability services told me that I had “misinterpreted” my accommodations agreement. When I continued to express my frustrations in an email, the former provost suggested that I consider transferring to another college.
A bipartisan bill moving through Congress aims to remove at least one barrier disabled students routinely encounter when entering higher education.
The U.S. Senate recently passed the Respond, Innovate, Succeed. Empower (RISE) Act, which would allow disabled students to use existing K-12 documentation, including Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and Section 504 plans, when requesting accommodations in college. Rather than requiring students to obtain new evaluations, colleges could rely on records that have already been used throughout a student’s elementary and secondary education.
The proposed RISE Act comes as disabled students make up a growing share of the nation’s college population. According to a recent Government Accountability Office report, the percentage of disabled students nearly doubled, rising from 11 percent in 2004 to 21 percent in 2020.
That growth is becoming increasingly visible on college campuses. Since 2015, the number of students receiving disability accommodations has increased dramatically across higher education. At the University of Chicago, the figure has more than tripled in eight years. At the University of California, Berkeley, it has nearly quintupled over 15 years. At Amherst College, 34 percent of undergraduates are registered with disability services, while more than 20 percent of undergraduates at both Harvard University and Brown University are registered as disabled.
The rise in disabled college students mirrors trends in K-12 education; a separate Government Accountability Office report found that the number of students receiving disability-related services increased by 21 percent between the 2012-13 and 2023-24 academic years. Federal data also show that roughly 16.5 percent of public-school students received services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act during the 2024-25 school year.
As more disabled students pursue higher education, barriers in the accommodation process have become increasingly difficult to ignore.
Unlike public schools, where districts are responsible for identifying students who need services and providing accommodations, colleges place much of that responsibility on students. Students must disclose their disabilities, submit documentation, request accommodations, and advocate for themselves.
Researchers interviewed by the Government Accountability Office found that some disabled students arrive on campus unprepared for the level of self-advocacy expected in higher education. Documentation requirements can create an additional challenge. The agency found that accommodation policies vary widely among colleges and universities, with some institutions requiring updated psychoeducational or neuropsychological evaluations. Students seeking those evaluations can spend months waiting for appointments. The evaluations can be prohibitively expensive, often costing between $1,500 and $5,000.
For disabled students and their families, those costs can be a substantial burden. Advocates have long argued that requiring new evaluations forces students to prove disabilities already documented through years of school records and accommodation plans.
“Students with disabilities shouldn’t have to pay for costly and duplicative testing to prove a disability that they’ve already documented,” Rep. Jim Banks said after Senate passage of the legislation. The bill still faces consideration in the House of Representatives. Even if it becomes a law, it will not solve every challenge that disabled students face.
Still, the RISE Act would represent a meaningful step forward. By reducing unnecessary documentation requirements, the legislation could allow disabled students to spend less time proving they deserve accommodations and more time focusing on what college is supposed to be about: learning, building community, and preparing for the future.
Sources:
Douglas-Gabriel, Danielle. “College Students with Disabilities May Soon Face Less Red Tape.” The Washington Post, 12Nov. 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/11/12/college-students-with-disabilities-may-soon-face-less-red-tape/ .
Horowitch, Rose. “Accommodation Nation.” The Atlantic, 2 Dec. 2025,http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/01/elite-university-student-accommodation/684946/ .