Online education has the guise of accessibility. When COVID-19 pushed the world of higher education online, some students, including those who work, may have found online access an easier way to put educational goals first, especially when the economy was cliff-diving and taking jobs with it.
One commonly held belief is that fully online instruction increased accessibility for disabled students. But Krista Soria, the assistant director for research institutes in partnership with the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU), said that the numbers show the opposite is true.
“We can tell from the data…that students with disabilities did not necessarily report any greater or more positive experiences [online] than students without disabilities,” said Soria.
SERU, a consortium of over 30 large public research universities in the U.S., found that only 20% of undergraduate students with disabilities reported enjoying online learning, and over one third of students with disabilities reported no increased satisfaction with online learning in general. Those numbers increased for students with multiple disabilities.
“Students that have multiple disabilities, they tend to experience greater hardships,” said Soria.
This data “runs contrary to the narrative right now,” said Soria. The few places where disabled students did describe a greater satisfaction than non-disabled students, like comfort levels in speaking up in class and connection with other students, were marginal.
SERU reached out to graduate students with disabilities and found similar results. Graduate students with disabilities liked online learning less than those without disabilities. Graduate students with disabilities also felt less productive and more disconnected from counseling and professors. Only 26% percent of graduate students with disabilities experienced no financial hardships during the transition to online instruction, compared to 41% of non-disabled students. Both graduate and undergraduate disabled students also struggle more often with unexpected expenses and food insecurity.
