Join Simone and Malcolm Collins as they dive into the explosive growth of disability accommodations at elite universities. Drawing from recent articles, personal experiences, and lively online debates, they explore how and why the number of students receiving accommodations has skyrocketed—sometimes for reasons that go far beyond genuine need.

This episode unpacks the incentives driving students, parents, and institutions to game the system, the cultural and ethical implications of widespread accommodations, and the unintended consequences for education and society. From private dorms to extended test times, Simone and Malcolm discuss the real-world impact of these policies, the blurred lines between advantage and necessity, and what it all means for the future of higher education.

Whether you’re a student, educator, parent, or just curious about the changing landscape of academia, this conversation will challenge your assumptions and spark new questions.

If you enjoy thought-provoking discussions on education, culture, and policy, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share! Below is the episode outline; you’ll find the episode transcript at the very end. :)

The Gist

* Disability accommodation at universities is getting insane, both in scale and nature

* From an Atlantic article on the issue:

* “This year, 38 percent of Stanford undergraduates are registered as having a disability; in the fall quarter, 24 percent of undergraduates were receiving academic or housing accommodations.”

* Though side note, apparently Stanford is so bad because you can use a disability qualification to get a guaranteed single dorm, which is HUGE.

* “One administrator told me that a student at a public college in California had permission to bring their mother to class. This became a problem, because the mom turned out to be an enthusiastic class participant.”

* These out-of-control numbers are mostly coming from people gaming the system, driven by competitive pressures and not actual disabilities

* And Atlantic highlighting this growth in accommodation has sparked some great commentary on X:

* Students shared their experiences:

* Basil wrote: “In my HS AP Chem class there were 11 students and I was the only one without double time, so I had to hand in my test early while everyone else in the class got to continue”

* Calder McHugh shared: “Over a decade ago, at the private NYC high school I attended, in an 18-person math class there was once a quiz that only THREE of us took on time/without accommodations. ADHD/ADD tests were just ordered up (and that’s not to mention the tutors, etc, that were writing everyone’s essays for them). As someone with artist parents who didn’t know how to (and didn’t want to) game the system in this way, I felt constantly disadvantaged in the moment. But years later, I’m so grateful that wasn’t my experience in high school or college because I actually managed to learn something. // This is a great piece and it’s shocking in many ways; it’s also just a broader swath of the American public catching up to what the ultra-elite have been doing for their children for a long time now.”

* For example, as Matthew Zeitlin mused on X: “i wonder how much nihilism/low social trust comes from the sense that everyone is getting one over on you and everyone else”

* On that theme, Armand Domalewsky noted that “one thing I feel like conservatives grok better than liberals is if you create an honor code based rule that gives someone an advantage (“don’t enforce fare collection, most people pay”) eventually even honest people feel compelled to cheat to avoid being cheated”

* Bobby Fijan describes this behavior as: “The upper class version of subway fare jumping // Breaking rules just because you can. And making everyone who follows the rules into chumps.”

* Michael Gibson had a great Zinger: ““To each according to their need” creates a society where people compete to be victims”

* On a different note, Josh Barro points out that: “if you have a condition like ADHD, anxiety, or depression, and it makes it harder for you to complete tests on time, that is something the test should *measure*, not something it should avoid measuring.”

* Molly follows up: “I wonder what happens to these kids upon graduation. No employer is going to give you extra time on a deadline or let you bring your mom to work.”

* Our buddy Razib Khan chimes in: “do you want your lawyer to get more time on their LSAT? do they get more time to bill more hours when they work on your case? absurd”

* Katherine Boyle: “Parents encourage or let their kids opt into disability diagnosis because it seems like there’s little downside: more time on tests, better chances at college admissions, optional performance enhancing drugs, accommodations of all types. I can’t stress this enough: the consequence is your child’s character. Many kids genuinely believe they’re sick or that there’s something wrong with them. You tell a girl she seems anxious, she’ll believe she’s anxious. You tell a boy he has a true disability in the form of ADHD and he starts thinking creativity or day dreaming is a deficiency. You can gaslight people into believing they’re sick, and we have entire systems and institutions encouraging this. We’ve convinced young people it’s fine to be weak and frail, when we should be doing the opposite: convincing them they’re resilient, independent, strong people who can handle any challenge. If there’s one thing I believe as a parent, it’s that you can will your children into greatness. Society will encourage them to do the opposite, but you don’t have to comply.”

* Teacher Neeraja Deshpande confirms this: “Lots of people assuming this is purposeful manipulation, and, yes, there are definitely cases of that (e.g., Varsity Blues), but the reality, from what I’ve seen, first among my peers and then as a teacher, is actually worse: these kids *actually* believe they are disabled! Yes, it’s ridiculous to the rest of us willing to plainly state that the emperor has no clothes, but for these kids (and their parents) the “disability” is very real, even if it is fake, and that learned helplessness—which leads to actual, crippling anxiety—is why discussing this is such a third rail in education.”

But I think there’s more going on than the competitive flywheel effect, the way this contributes to the dissolution of legacy education, and the fact that we’re driving our kids into victim mindsets—there’s fascinating bureaucratic corruption at play and this development has important implications for future job market success, so let’s go further.

The Article that Sparked the Discussion

Accommodation Nation: America’s colleges have an extra-time-on-tests problem.

By Rose Horowitch

The article is all about how academic accommodations, especially extra time on tests, have expanded so rapidly at elite U.S. colleges that they now threaten basic ideas of fairness while still failing many truly disabled and less privileged students.

THE OPENING SOUNDS LIKE THE PREMISE OF A SOUTH PARK EPISODE

“Administering an exam used to be straightforward: All a college professor needed was an open room and a stack of blue books. At many American universities, this is no longer true. Professors now struggle to accommodate the many students with an official disability designation, which may entitle them to extra time, a distraction-free environment, or the use of otherwise-prohibited technology. The University of Michigan has two centers where students with disabilities can take exams, but they frequently fill to capacity, leaving professors scrambling to find more desks and proctors. Juan Collar, a physicist at the University of Chicago, told me that so many students now take their exams in the school’s low-distraction testing outposts that they have become more distracting than the main classrooms.”

Growth of accommodations

Over the past 10–15 years, the share of students registered with disabilities at selective universities has surged, with some schools seeing numbers triple or quintuple. At places like Brown, Harvard, Amherst, and Stanford, large fractions of undergraduates are now registered as disabled and many receive testing or housing accommodations.

* “In 2019, a Wall Street Journal analysis found that one in five Scarsdale High School studen