I believe that the concept of including the costs of accomodations in the overhead budgets of publicly funded institutions may be reasonable given that they receive the majority of their financial support from government sources. In the for-profit world however it seems to me to be unreasonable to have to build the costs of unforseeable accomodations into the budget. Likewise, I see it as unreasonable in this situation to charge all students a higher rate than what their tuition would otherwise be, just to cover the costs of offering accomodations. The concept of reasonable vs unreasonable relative to financial considerations seems important in that evaluation. For example, if I have a deaf student who is enrolled in a $15,000 program and they request a sign interpreter for the program that will cost the institution $25,000, that would seem to be an unreasonable request.
Deborah,
I have a colleague who says, "we should not be shy about admitting that there are costs involved in implementing the ADA. Our willingness to assume those costs bespeaks our commitment to the higher ideal than the bottom line." There is no question that some accommodations can be terribly expensive (such as sign language interpreters or braille. HOWEVER, the vast majority of accommodations cost little or nothing to implement. The Feds have simply chosen to believe that it all equals out in the end, and that providing equal access for students with disabilities is "part of the cost of doing business" for institutions of higher education.
Dr. Jane Jarrow
