Speak Out Story: Why higher education funding remains inaccessible for disabled students.
Sophie is a proud late-diagnosed autistic person. As a peer mentor, she uses her lived experience to advocate and empower neurodivergent people. Sophie is a postgraduate student at the University of Sussex, where she is completing an MSc in Experimental Psychology. Her specialist research area is how late-diagnosed autistic adults experience PTSD and trauma. Her career goal is to become a clinician and therapist, helping to diagnose autistic women and girls and improve their mental health.
I remember graduating eight years ago vowing to never step foot in a university again. I was one of many fresh-faced graduates disillusioned by entry-level positions, which were just minimum wage internships dressed up in a shiny, corporate suit. With my mountain of student debt, I didn't even want to entertain the idea of pursuing a master’s. I wanted to earn some ‘serious’ money, or at least enough money to survive living in London.
Fast forward to June 2021. I’ve changed careers twice, been fired twice, and moved countries twice. My recent autism diagnosis, alongside all of the workplace challenges I had faced in my early 20s due to being an undiagnosed autistic employee, prompted me to reconsider what I really valued in a career. I did some soul-searching and discovered my career purpose - to improve how clinicians diagnose autistic women and girls. However, in order to achieve this, I needed to go back to university. Don’t get me wrong, the thought of further study excited me. I would be conducting research on a topic close to my heart that will hopefully make an impact, but there was one thing looming over me: another mountain of student debt.
I knew paying for a master’s degree would not be easy. I was also aware that as an autistic person with anxiety who has experienced extreme burnout before, working part-time alongside my degree would not be a realistic financial option.
From talking with autistic friends, I knew that there was some financial support available for disabled students; however, I was not prepared to encounter the vast amounts of admin and the hurdle of having to prove that I’m actually worthy of financial support.
I came across a scholarship for disabled students from a UK disability charity. According to their website, they were, “looking for exceptional leaders with the ability to create change and influence others. This could include excellence within a chosen field of study, or the ability to demonstrate leadership.” I had a problem with this criterion. What makes someone ‘excellent’ or ‘exceptional’? Isn’t this subjective based on the applicant’s life circumstances? One person could achieve 10 A*s at A-level and gain a First in their degree while starting up their own business at the age of 21. This is what ‘excellence’ looks like in our society and we applaud it without question. But I challenge you to look more deeply. No doubt this person has achieved excellent things, but how about another candidate who hasn’t achieved all of this, but has had to overcome substantial systemic barriers to enter higher education? Surely this person is just as ‘exceptional’ for their achievements, despite the lack of ‘excellent’ accolades.
The crux of the problem with scholarships, particularly ones aimed at disabled students, is that we have all had to endure and navigate systemic barriers because we are disabled. Some of us, particularly if we come from a working-class background, are black or an ethnic minority, are doubly disadvantaged not just by our disability but by our socioeconomic status resulting in a lack of opportunities in the first place. Scholarships, while they are a lifeline for those who are awarded them, are rooted in the myth of ‘meritocracy’.
If an applicant has come from an ‘excellent’ university and has ‘excellent’ grades they must be ‘exceptional’ and are more hardworking than others. What this completely ignores are the hurdles that ‘less exceptional’ students have had to navigate through, often without any help.
If organizations really want to help the diverse disabled student community, they need to re-think using the ‘exceptional’ disabled person trope. Why must we have to prove our worth as disabled people to get financial aid? I understand that most disability charities are underfunded and therefore have to limit how much aid they offer. But is the current system of viewing disabled people as ‘exceptional’ only if our success exceeds that of our non-disabled peers really working?
I was rejected from the final stages of the scholarship. The reason being was that I “did not show enough evidence of being an exceptional disabled leader”. Is it not enough to simply be able to navigate a system deliberately designed to disadvantage disabled people, while being an undiagnosed autistic person for most of my life? I guess not.
The charity’s message was clear - it’s not enough to just be disabled.
It’s not even enough to explain why the scholarship would help you achieve your goals. It’s not enough to work within a system of blatant systemic biases, hoping that you’ll make it if you work that little bit harder. They don’t want any of that. What they do want is to showcase disabled people as possessing some sort of superpower.
The exemplary, infallible disabled person narrative is extremely harmful as it ignores the real systemic issues in education and society that prevent many of us from succeeding. In 2019, only 21.8% of disabled people had a degree, compared to 38.0% of non-disabled people (ONS). I wonder how much of this disparity was down to the lack of higher education funding for disabled students, or rather the red tape we have to battle through when we do apply for funding?
For instance, with most of these scholarships, we have to provide references from past employers or professors as further ‘proof’ of our ‘excellence’. But what these scholarships do not realize is that many disabled people have suffered discrimination in the workplace and in educational institutions and therefore do not have anyone to vouch for us. What’s more, many of us are long-term unemployed so who do we use as a reference? Simply making the application process simpler, based on our needs and potential rather than our accolades would dramatically improve our access to funding.
Lastly, I am aware of the Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) available for UK students, and I understand that it’s helped to close the educational gap. However, it’s not the most streamlined process. The bureaucratic process of filling out a 20-page document providing work and medical history alongside the ‘right type of proof’ for our disability has deterred many disabled students, including myself, from applying. For autistic people like me, it is incredibly complicated interpreting some of the instructions on the form, alongside arranging needs assessments. At what point is this process accessible for all disabled students?
Funding for disabled students is supposed to create greater accessibility in higher education, but the process is still inaccessible to many.
We should not have to burn ourselves out achieving all of these milestones, just to support a scholarship application. We should not have to provide streams of medical, educational, and employment evidence to prove that we are somehow not faking our condition. We should not have to live up to the ‘exceptional’ and ‘inspiring’ disabled person trope just so we can have a shot at an education.
Sophie Longley
Have you faced discrimination in academic settings because of your disability?
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