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Reports reveal this week that college students across the United States, including up to 40% of students at Stanford University, are claiming to have a disability in order for special accommodations like more time on tests is prompting pushback from education experts.
Recent data reveals, according to The Atlantic, that at schools like Brown and Harvard, more than 20 percent of undergraduates are now registered as disabled. At Amherst, that number hits 34 percent. But professors warn that this isn’t a surge in physical impairments. Instead, it’s a wave of students acquiring “dubious” diagnoses for disabilities like ADHD, anxiety, and dyslexia that come with coveted perks: extra time on exams and better campus housing.
“She, of course, didn’t have a disability,” a Stanford University student wrote in The Sunday Times in an article suggesting that 40% of Stanford students claim to be “disabled.”
“She knew it. I knew it. But she had figured out early what most Stanford students eventually learn: the Office of Accessible Education will give students a single room, extra time on tests and even exemptions from academic requirements if they qualify as ‘disabled.’”
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A young man sits at a classroom desk, covering his face with his hands as he appears stressed and overwhelmed during class. (Canart7/iStock)
Fox News Digital spoke to several education experts who said that the systems in place at American colleges are being abused and students with real disabilities will be hurt the most.
“College Students with real disabilities—like mine— are being passed over for those who, as a result of insufficient high school preparation or otherwise, have sought to make things as easy as possible for themselves in the ordinarily rigorous college environment,” Sarah Parshall Perry, Vice President and Legal Fellow at Defending Education, told Fox News Digital.
“The fact that we’re seeing a surge in students presenting with ‘disabilities’ is evidence that the youngest generation is ill prepared for life in the real world.”
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Stanford, California: Stanford University Campus. (David Butow/Corbis via Getty Images)
Erika Sanzi, Senior Director of Communications for Defending Education, told Fox News Digital that this story “reflects our perverse incentive structure that encourages students to claim identity labels that come with special accommodations, even when they don’t have an actual disability.”
The “gaming” of the system doesn’t stop at medical claims. Sunday Times also reported a trend of students claiming “religious dietary restrictions” to opt out of Stanford’s mandatory $7,944-a-year meal plan.
“Reasonable accommodations rightly exist to ensure equal opportunities for all students,” University of Kentucky Professor and Campus Reform editor-in-chief Zachary Marschall, Ph.D, told Fox News Digital.
“However, being uncomfortable is not a disability and it is unreasonable to scheme for a single dorm room or easier testing conditions. This trend is symptomatic of Gen Z’s toxic entitlement to feel comfortable, which higher education enables by accommodating students’ self-centered expectations.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Brown and Harvard universities for comment.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Stanford University said that recent press inquiries have “prompted us to take a deeper look into our federal reporting practices.”
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“We have determined that our previous practice did not accurately reflect the number of students who are actually receiving accommodations, and we will correct this in future IPEDS reporting,” the statement said. “The previously reported numbers (38% for 2023) reflected students who simply registered with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE) during the course of a given year rather than students who received academic accommodations. The number of students who received academic accommodations is less than half of the reported number. For fall 2025, 12.5% of undergraduates received academic accommodations.”
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