The percentage of students at Swarthmore with any accommodations — academic, dining, housing, or other — for disabilities has risen dramatically in recent years, from 3.5% in Fall 2011 to 23% in Fall 2025. The data, shared with The Phoenix by Director of Student Disability Services (SDS) Andrea Vassar, reflects a near seven-fold increase in accommodations.
According to Vassar’s email, 13% of Swarthmore students receive academic accommodations in particular, most commonly in the form of 50% extended time on exams, access to a separate testing facility, and one-to-two day extensions on assignments. At Swarthmore, “the accommodations process is interactive, individualized, and grounded in equity; students work with Student Disability Services to discuss their lived experiences and supporting medical documentation,” Vassar wrote.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), a higher education database managed by the U.S. Department of Education, tracks the percentage of students at colleges and universities who are formally registered as disabled, a metric different from the percent with accommodations. The IPEDS data suggests that, as recently as 2016, just 5% of students at Swarthmore were registered as disabled, a figure that climbed to 21% in Fall 2024. The rate remained relatively stable between 2008 (4%), and 2016 (5%).
A graph of the percentage of Swarthmore students registered as disabled since 2008 shows steeper increases after 2016, again after the COVID pandemic in 2020, and beginning in 2023.
Source: IPEDS data, U.S. Department of Education
Vassar wrote that the college’s leadership had been “attentive and supportive” of the work of SDS to ensure that disability access is treated as central to the college’s mission.
Swarthmore sits more or less in the middle of the pack relative to its peer institutions (including liberal arts institutions like Pomona, Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr Colleges, as well as the University of Pennsylvania, a geographically close research university for comparison) with regard to growth in the percentage of the college’s students registered as disabled.
Bowdoin College is the only school in the group not to have seen a large increase in the metric in the last ten-to-twenty years, with 7% of its student body currently registered as disabled. Amherst College, at 34%, has the largest portion among all these institutions.
A graph of the metric over time at the group of colleges shows that the percentage of disabled students at most schools first began to increase more rapidly between 2014 and 2016, and several schools might be in the middle of another uptick now.
The data from Swarthmore aligns with a recent national discourse about increased academic accommodations in K-12 and higher education. Vassar wrote that the most common disabilities that students reported to SDS have been psychiatric disabilities, chronic health conditions, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
A January article in The Atlantic contributed to the prominence of disability accommodations in public discourse around higher education. The piece, authored by staff writer Rose Horowitch, sparked controversy from educational observers in part for its coverage of how the increase in students with accommodations was more common and to a greater extent at very selective institutions. This observation aroused concerns about the equality of access to the medical and bureaucratic procedures that allow students to register for accommodations.
In contrast to selective schools like Swarthmore, the rate of accommodations for students at public two-year colleges has remained stable at 4% for as long as the last fifteen years, according to research featured in the Atlantic article.
“I think it is really important to note historic disparities in health diagnosis, especially impacted by race and socio-economic status,” said Catherine Herbes ’27, co-president of the Swarthmore Disabilities Association (SDA), in an email to The Phoenix. She then pointed to the potential utility of self-diagnosis in cases about which the medical system is lacking.
In recent semesters, SDA has pushed primarily for increased transparency about the disability accommodations process at the college, alongside hosting town halls and meetings for those wishing to learn more about it. The group wrote a seventeen-page Student Guide to Accommodations that is updated semesterly.
Some have voiced concerns that such a large portion of students receiving accommodations might reduce the level of academic rigor at these institutions. In The Phoenix’s Spring 2026 faculty poll, 23% of respondents expressed disapproval of the college’s approach to academic accommodations, whereas 45% approved.
Vassar wrote that conversations with faculty about accommodations at the college have “focused on upholding rigor while building a more accessible learning environment,” while Herbes highlighted the difference between registering for accommodations and actually using them. “Often, SDS encourages students to request accommodations they think they might need or be eligible for just in case, as accommodations cannot be applied retroactively,” she wrote.
Experts have explored a range of possible causes for the rise in disability registration at academic institutions. Among them is the COVID pandemic, which may have contributed to the shift both through causing the general public to consider health more prominently and through developing lingering mental health problems and long COVID, a chronic illness that some get after being infected with coronavirus. Other possible roots include larger-scale societal changes, including the broad destigmatization of disabilities and increased understanding of the wide range of ways that disabilities can manifest.
Others have hypothesized that the root of academic accommodations, specifically, might lie in the increased competition for good scores on metrics like grades and exams, creating a race to the top that incentivizes those with disabilities who might not have otherwise pursued accommodations to do so. Another prominent hypothesis is the idea that more progressive institutions may have directed more resources into their disability accommodations offices in recent years in an attempt to ensure equal academic access, causing an expansion in their outreach on campus.
Vassar wrote that she doubts the phenomenon can be explained by any single cause, and instead suggested that the change was likely due to a combination of the reduced stigmatization and increased understanding of disability experiences, the COVID pandemic, and “greater student awareness of their rights and the support available to them.” Herbes also raised the argument that improved diagnostic practices may have led to increased identification of already prevalent, underdiagnosed disabilities.
Herbes felt it was unlikely that increased institutional resources for offices like SDS were a driving factor, given that the office has remained small, at least at Swarthmore. Both Herbes and Vassar pushed back on the idea that there was a lower bar for accommodations in an era of greater acceptance and understanding, given that requirements for medical documentation have existed throughout.
“For some students, this documentation can be very extensive and lead to a lot of stress during their requesting process, further limiting incentive to request accommodations unless they really think they will need them,” Herbes wrote.
Vassar agreed, suggesting the increased numbers more likely reflect that “more students are identifying needs and engaging in a process designed to ensure equal access.”
Herbes was skeptical of the notion that there had been an overall decrease in the societal stigmatization of disabilities in recent years, citing the discrepancy between the high number of people who seek accommodations and the much smaller group who discuss their disabilities publicly.
“I would attribute much of this [disconnect] to the inherent ableism of higher education, in which there is prioritization of high physical and mental acuity, and the limited way we are taught to think about disability as young children,” she wrote.In closing her remarks, Vassar also highlighted the role for the rest of the community to play. “Most importantly, accessibility is a shared responsibility: while SDS plays a key coordinating role, creating an inclusive campus depends on ongoing partnership among administrators, faculty, staff, and students alike,” she wrote.
