Why universities still struggle to make degrees accessible for disabled students
The higher education sector is more aware of disability than it was a few years ago. Universities are more willing to provide support, and attitudes have improved. What students describe day to day, however, tells a different story.
A recent report on accessibility for disabled students in UK universities, produced by Disabled Students UK in partnership with charity The Snowdon Trust, shows that access continues to break down. This is not because support is never agreed, but because it is not consistently delivered.
Disabled students’ ability to attend, participate in, and complete their studies depends less on what exists on paper and more on how well institutional systems work in practice. This pattern is also the focus of my ongoing PhD research, which examines how accessibility support systems operate in UK higher education and how reliably agreed adjustments are delivered in practice.
Most disabled students who disclose their disability to their university receive some form of support. However, fewer than half of the over 1,000 disabled students surveyed by Disabled Students UK report that all of their agreed adjustments are consistently delivered. This can mean lecture recordings that are promised but unavailable, flexibility that varies between modules, or adjustments that depend on individual staff awareness rather than clear processes.
These gaps are rarely the result of hostility or unwillingness. Instead, they reflect systems where responsibility for delivery is unclear and monitoring is weak. When adjustments fail, it is often the student who must notice the problem, pursue it, and escalate it. This places the burden of access on the very people those systems are meant to support.
These findings align with what research across the higher education sector has been showing for some time. There is a persistent gap between universities’ commitments to accessibility and what students experience day to day. Responsibility for delivering adjustments is often spread across departments and services.
The report also shows that fewer disabled students now have formal support plans, alongside reduced contact with disability advisers. This suggests a shift towards more informal or automated approaches, often driven by capacity pressures.
In practice, this can look like students being asked to select standard adjustments through an online system, with little or no followup. Support may be approved without a meeting with a disability adviser, and responsibility for putting adjustments in place is left to individual departments or staff. For students with complex or fluctuating conditions, this often means support that appears adequate on paper but breaks down when teaching formats change or difficulties arise.
For some students with straightforward needs, this can reduce friction. For others it leads to less reliable access and fewer opportunities to influence how support is provided. Formal support plans do more than list adjustments. They give students a structured opportunity to explain their needs, ensure those needs are clearly recorded, and make the support process more transparent. They also provide continuity, clarify responsibility, and provide a shared reference point when things go wrong. As these structures weaken, access becomes increasingly dependent on individual persistence and the ability to navigate complex systems.
During the pandemic, measures such as lecture recording and remote participation improved access for many disabled students. In recent years, this flexibility has begun to decline. This retreat has not been neutral. For students who cannot always attend in person, reduced flexibility can mean missing teaching altogether. These decisions are often framed as restoring normality or the campus experience. Their effect, however, is to remove forms of access that were already shown to work. The result is a return to systems that assume all students can participate in the same way.
One of the report’s clearest findings is that administrative complexity itself acts as a barrier to access. Disabled students describe delays between departments and services, repeated explanations of their needs, and frequent requests for evidence. When systems are fragmented, access depends on a student’s ability to navigate bureaucracy rather than on the adjustments they are entitled to.
Many students report going without support because the effort required to secure it is too high, particularly when they are unwell. This also helps explain why many access failures go unrecorded. Escalation is often seen as risky, time-consuming, or ineffective.
These patterns matter beyond individual experience. When access is unreliable, the consequences include disrupted study, poorer outcomes and higher withdrawal rates. There are also wider implications for regulation and public trust.
As institutions make decisions about resourcing, delivery models and teaching formats, the reliability of access becomes a test of how those pressures are managed. Treating accessibility as local or optional rather than as essential infrastructure increases the likelihood of repeated failure. In this context, accessibility is not a specialist concern. It is a matter of system reliability and public accountability.
The report does not suggest that universities lack awareness or goodwill. Instead, it shows that culture has moved faster than systems. Disabled students are not asking for special treatment but for support that is delivered consistently and without personal cost. The challenge now is to move from intent to reliability. Until accessibility is embedded as a baseline expectation within institutional systems, disabled students’ access to higher education will continue to depend on where they study and on how well those systems work.
Holly Louise Parrott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.