Reply to Wall Street Journal on rampant growth in percentage of college students with “disabilities”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]https://www.wsj.com/articles/colleges-bend-the-rules-for-more-students-give-them-extra-help-1527154200

“At Pomona, 22% of students were considered disabled this year, up from 5% in 2014. Other elite schools have also seen a startling jump in disabilities, according to data from the federal government and from the schools. At Hampshire, Amherst and Smith colleges in Massachusetts and Yeshiva University in New York, one in five students are classified as disabled. At Oberlin College in Ohio, it is one in four. At Marlboro College in Vermont, it is one in three.”

I’m sorry, but this is disgraceful. It’s one thing if you are legally blind, but anxiety or ADHD should not be grounds for giving someone twice the time to take an exam. It’s unfair to the more humble students who are less inclined to take advantage of what should be reserved for people are are truly in-need. [/quote]

[b]The amount of ignorance in PP's comment is really what is disgraceful[/b].[/quote]

?  How so?  The rate of increase since 2014 is staggering.[/quote]

Having a disability isn't disgraceful.  Having a disability and attending college isn't disgraceful.  Having a disability, attending college, and having appropriate accommodations isn't disgraceful either.  Also, ignorant people like OP don't get to decide what is or is not a disability.

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but it's obviously gaming the system.  No possible way could there be a four-fold increase in "disabilities" in just 4 years.  I think the prof's posting above probably explains what's going on about right[/quote]

Yes there can if people with disabilities were unlikely to be labeled as such until recently.  I know plenty of people with ADHD or ASD who've graduated college without having been diagnosed.  It's incredibly common in my generation to only learn of your diagnosis after the diagnosis of your child.  I also know people who have very successful careers who were unable to complete college because of their disabilities.

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Sure.  But that's not 25% of the entire college class!  Come on.  [/quote]

In wealthier areas schools, 11-13% of the kids receive special education services.  I would guess that if a college were well known to have a superior students with disabilities office, they would receive a disproportionate percentage of applications from students with disabilities.  My DS has dyslexia and ASD and you'd better believe I pay attention to conversations about where other kids with disabilities are headed to for college even though that is years off.  Hell, I've mapped out which HSs offer Latin or ASL for the language requirement.

OP's use of scare quotes and "rampant" and PP's fixation on extended test time demonstrate an assumption that the vast majority of students with disabilities are cheaters who just want to game the system.  That is a willfully ignorant.  It's not clear at all from the numbers that there is abuse or, if there is abuse, what form it takes.  We do know is that the percentage of children being diagnosed with ASD is steadily increasing.  We know that somewhere around 15% of elementary students have some level of reading disability (but we refuse to screen for it, so it is vastly under-identified).  We know that record number of high school students are suffering from anxiety and depression.  But here you are, so concerned that there might be college students getting extra time on tests.

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