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UC disabled students facing service shortages

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Flickr / Creative Commons

CalMatters reports a UC workgroup is considering pursuing a goal of providing one disability specialist for every 250 disabled undergraduate students.

But the recommendations are not yet final, and all eight undergraduate campuses who shared their student-to-specialist ratios with CalMatters also reported numbers falling short of that target, with schools reporting specialists' caseloads of up to 600 students.

As schools struggle to recruit and pay for the disability specialists responsible for reviewing and approving individuals' housing and academic accommodations -- which can include note-taking services, on-campus transportation, additional time for exams and more -- disabled students say the delays in service have left them academically and emotionally drained.

In response, the UC Student Association is requesting more aid from the state for the 2023-24 fiscal year and beyond in order to hire more than 100 additional specialists.

In the 2020- 21 school year, seven percent of UC students received accommodations from their campuses' disability services, up from five percent in the 2017-18 school year.

Some campus directors report increases over the past two decades in the number of disabled students they serve that have exceeded centers' hiring rates.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, universities are required to provide disabled students with equal access to opportunities on campus.

Sunni M. Khalid is a veteran of more than 40 years in journalism, having worked in print, radio, television, and web journalism.