COVID's Lasting Impact on College Disability Services: What Stayed, What Changed, and What's Coming
Key Takeaway
COVID forced DRCs to adopt remote intake meetings, flexible attendance policies, and recorded lectures, changes many had resisted for years. Five years later, remote intake is standard at 70%+ of institutions, but flexible attendance remains contentious. The biggest lasting impact: a 300-400% surge in accommodation registrations driven by mental health awareness and reduced stigma.
Five Years Later: What Actually Changed
In spring 2020, every DRC in the country was forced to reinvent itself in about two weeks. We moved intake meetings to Zoom, testing to remote proctoring, and faculty notifications to email-only. We figured we'd go back to normal in a semester or two.
It's 2025. "Normal" never came back. What came instead was something more interesting, a selective adoption of pandemic practices that actually worked, combined with a surge in demand that nobody anticipated.
What Stayed
Remote Intake Meetings
Before COVID, suggesting a Zoom intake meeting would have gotten you strange looks. Now, over 70% of DRCs offer remote intake as a standard option. Students prefer it. It reduces no-shows. It makes disability services accessible to students who live off campus or have transportation barriers.
In my office, remote intakes account for about 45% of all initial meetings. We've found no difference in quality or completeness compared to in-person.
Flexible Attendance Policies
This was the most contentious accommodation before COVID. Faculty argued that attendance was essential to the learning experience. Then everyone went remote and… courses still functioned.
Flexible attendance isn't universal, it shouldn't be. But the argument that "you must be physically present for every class or you can't learn" lost a lot of credibility between 2020 and 2022. More institutions now recognize flexible attendance as a reasonable accommodation for chronic conditions, not a blanket excuse.
Lecture Recording
Pre-COVID, asking a professor to record lectures was often treated as an unreasonable burden. Post-COVID, most lecture halls have recording infrastructure installed. The technology barrier disappeared.
Recording isn't an accommodation per se, but it supports several accommodations: note-taking services, auditory processing, attention-related disabilities, and students who need to review material multiple times.
Digital Documentation
Remember when students had to bring paper documentation to the DRC office? We now accept digital uploads universally. This alone has reduced intake processing time by 1-2 days on average.
What Didn't Stick
Remote Proctored Testing
We tried it. Students hated the invasive software. Proctoring companies had privacy issues. Academic integrity concerns never went away. By Fall 2022, most institutions had moved back to in-person testing centers.
The exception: online-only programs that were already remote before COVID.
Temporary Pandemic Accommodations
During 2020-2021, many DRCs offered blanket accommodations, extended deadlines, flexible attendance, pass/fail options, without requiring documentation. That era is over. The pendulum has swung back toward individualized, documentation-based accommodations.
This isn't a regression. The interactive, individualized process exists for good reasons. What changed is that the process itself became more accessible and less bureaucratic.
The Surge Nobody Predicted
The Numbers
| Year | Approx. Registered Students (Typical Mid-Size University) | Change | |------|----------------------------------------------------------|--------| | 2019 | 800 | Baseline | | 2020 | 650 | -19% (students dropped out/deferred) | | 2021 | 900 | +38% (catch-up + awareness) | | 2022 | 1,200 | +33% | | 2023 | 1,500 | +25% | | 2024 | 1,800 | +20% | | 2025 | 2,100+ | +17% |
That's a 163% increase in six years at a single institution. And this pattern is replicated across the country.
Why the Surge?
- Mental health awareness: Students are more willing to seek help for anxiety, depression, and ADHD
- Reduced stigma: The pandemic normalized conversations about mental health
- Faculty referrals: Professors are more likely to suggest disability services
- K-12 pipeline: More students enter college with existing IEPs/504 plans
- Better outreach: DRCs have gotten better at marketing their services
What's Coming Next
The Staffing Crisis
Accommodation registrations grew 163%. DRC staffing grew maybe 10-15%. The math doesn't work. We're heading toward a staffing crisis that technology alone can't solve, but technology can help.
AI-Assisted Accommodation Review
AI won't replace the interactive process, but it can support coordinators by suggesting accommodations based on documentation patterns, flagging cases that need clinical review, and automating routine processing steps.
The Documentation Debate
The RISE Act (if passed) and the general trend toward accepting broader documentation will continue to reshape intake procedures. DRCs that build flexible workflows now will be better positioned than those locked into rigid documentation requirements.
The Bottom Line
COVID didn't create the disability services transformation, it accelerated changes that were already overdue. The DRCs that adapted fastest in 2020 are the ones thriving in 2025. The ones that treated pandemic changes as temporary anomalies are the ones struggling with 2,000-student caseloads and 2019-era processes.
The lesson: build systems that can flex, because change is the only constant in this field.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did COVID change college disability services permanently?
The most lasting changes include: remote/hybrid intake meetings becoming standard (70%+ of DRCs), increased acceptance of flexible attendance as an accommodation, lecture recording becoming more common, mental health accommodation requests surging 300-400%, and reduced stigma around seeking accommodations.
Are remote accommodations still available after COVID?
It varies by institution. Remote intake meetings remain widely available. However, remote testing and remote course attendance are being scaled back as campuses return to in-person operations. The key principle: accommodations should be based on disability-related need, not pandemic-era convenience.
Why did accommodation requests increase so much after COVID?
Three main factors: (1) increased awareness of mental health conditions and reduced stigma around seeking help, (2) students who struggled during remote learning recognizing they needed support, and (3) faculty and advisors becoming more proactive about referring students to disability services.
Sources & References
Director of Disability Services & FERPA Compliance Officer
Thandiwe ran the DRC at a Big Ten school for eight years before joining AccommodoHub. She's reviewed over 12,000 accommodation cases and built the compliance framework that most of our product is based on. She still guest-lectures on ADA/Section 504 at Michigan's School of Education.
Ed.D. in Higher Education Leadership, University of Michigan. Certified Disability Management Specialist (CDMS). 14 years directing DRC operations at two R1 universities serving 35,000+ students.