Which Types of Colleges Have the Most Undergraduates With Disabilities?

The number of institutions where at least one out of 10 undergraduates reported having a disability has risen 61 percent over the past five years. In 2016-17, 267 institutions had 10 percent or more of their students report a disability to the campus’s office of disability services, or a similar office. In 2020-21, 431 colleges fit this description.

Students could report having one or more of the following conditions: a specific learning disability, a visual impairment, a hearing difficulty or deafness, a speech impairment, an orthopedic impairment, or another health impairment. The diversity and related offices provide these students with such services as note-takers and American Sign Language interpreters.

Here’s a sector-by-sector look at the percentage of undergraduates who reported a disability from the 2016-17 to 2020-21 academic years.

Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of Education data

Notes: Only four-year and two-year public, private nonprofit, and for-profit degree-granting U.S. institutions that were eligible to participate in the federal Title IV financial-aid program were considered for this analysis. Institutions that did not report a percentage of students registered with disabilities, or those that reported “not applicable” were omitted. Undergraduates who were enrolled in the fall of 2019 and formally registered with their campus’s disabilities-services office or its equivalent were counted. Students are not required to inform their colleges that they have a disability. If they want an adjustment to accommodate the disability, however, they should report it. Percentages of students reporting disabilities may reflect awareness and the level of availability of services at colleges, along with the prevalence of disabilities. Percentages may not add up to 100 because of rounding. Institutions with zero students reported are counted as 3 percent or fewer.