Mature student Linda Ring believed that she had little option but to abandon her health studies degree. Her depression meant that she was struggling to cope with some aspects of the course, and despite asking her university for help, she did not receive the support she needed to continue.

A particular problem was her phobia of oral presentations. She was having panic attacks during lectures and was worried that she might have one while she was doing a presentation. But when she asked whether the course could accommodate her fear of presentations – she didn’t have a problem with the coursework and exams – she was refused.

"I was made to feel it was just me trying to make up excuses for not wanting to take part in delivering oral presentations," she says.

Ring was under immense stress at home – both her husband and her daughter had been unwell – and she was suffering from health problems herself. But when she spoke to her tutor (who was, ironically, an experienced clinical psychologist) about the impact of her home life on her ability to cope with the course, she was simply told: "Don’t make it a problem."

"I left my course because I felt no help, understanding, or allowances were made to assist me to stay. I could have continued with the course if I had been provided with proper support," says Ring.

"Universities need to take on board the fact that, like myself, there are many people who feel excluded because they cannot tailor their illness to jump all the hurdles some of the courses set."

Ring had been saving for 20 years to go to university and is upset that she was unable to finish her degree.

"I would love to return but this experience has put me off as I still suffer from depression. But living and coping with depression is not a yardstick to measure intelligence."

In theory, stories such as this should now be in the past. Ring’s negative experience dates to the 1997-8 academic year and since then a lot has changed, primarily because of legislation requiring universities to offer more support. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was amended by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, and now, under part four of the Disability Discrimination Act, it is unlawful for education and training providers, including universities, to discriminate against disabled people. The act covers admission and enrolment; the provision of student services, which includes education, leisure facilities and accommodation; and exclusions. (1)

As a result of this legislation, institutions are obliged to make reasonable adjustments for disabled students. These can include changing course content, including work placements; adapting examination procedures such as allowing extra time or rest breaks; and providing information in different formats. For example, a visually impaired student who submits essays electronically could reasonably expect the lecturer to return them electronically, without handwritten comments that they find impossible to read.

Yvonne Dickinson, acting director of the National Disability Team, which supports higher education institutions as they improve provision for disabled students, says the legislation has forced institutions to face up to their responsibilities.

She says: "Ten years ago a disabled student at university would have been a welfare issue. The individual would probably have had to go to the welfare or disability office in a Portakabin in a car park. The support would have been very isolated and wouldn’t have reflected any part of the student’s learning and teaching experience. Within an institution there would have been one or two people who dealt with everything to do with disability, and no one else would have had ownership of it."

By contrast, universities now receive money from the Higher Education Funding Council for England to support disabled students, and many have a team to help with disability issues. More importantly, disability awareness has begun to permeate throughout the range of university services and staff, including those involved in teaching students. But changing the attitudes of academics has not always been easy.

Dickinson says: "Good practice is for lecturers to make their notes and handouts available before their lecture. But there are still lecturers who say ‘I have been teaching my way for 20 years, I don’t use handouts and I’m not changing’. There is the accusation of making it easy, but it’s actually a very constructive and positive way to encourage students to do research and preparatory work. It also helps lecturers themselves to be more organised."

Over recent years, universities have become more proactive about explaining the support they can offer. Whereas in the past disabled students would have needed to visit an institution to assess its suitability, relevant information now tends to be detailed in the prospectus. Disabled students are clearly becoming more encouraged to apply – in 1994-5 just 2 per cent of higher education students were known to be disabled compared with 5.39 per cent in 2003-4.

Of course, this increase may be due to more disabled students choosing to disclose their disability, perhaps because of changes in social attitudes or because doing so means that their university is then required by law to address their needs – an institution is unlikely to be found to be discriminatory if there was no way it could have identified a need. However, under the legislation, institutions also have a duty to anticipate disabled people’s needs and to make general adjustments, such as posting lecture notes on the intranet.

This is an area where many universities are failing, says Jenni Dyer, policy director at Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities.

"Not enough resources are being put into general adjustments," she says. "Universities are good when an individual needs adjustments but they are not doing enough to anticipate disabled students’ needs."

Needless to say, if enough general adjustments are in place, fewer disabled students will need to disclose their disabilities to gain extra support.

While universities are expected to encourage students to disclose, there is no duty on the student to do so – and some are afraid of the potential consequences, particularly if they mention their disability on their application form.

Alongside direct support from their university, many disabled students are also entitled to additional funding from the disabled students’ allowances (DSA), which are intended to cover extra costs or expenses that arise because of their disability. The four allowances cover specialist equipment, such as a radio microphone system or a tape recorder; non-medical help, such as a sign language interpreter or a note-taker; general expenditure, such as extra books for students unable to study in the library or for higher heating costs if more time is spent studying at home; and additional travel costs.

The allowances, which are awarded by local education authorities in England and Wales and by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland, are not means-tested, and different amounts are awarded according to need. That there is a cap on the amounts available can cause problems. Students with complex needs, such as those who are deaf and blind, can easily exceed the £11,840 that is available each year for non-medical help.

Dyer says: "Universities are not good at plugging the gap when the DSA runs out. They rely on DSA to fund students and when that runs out they don’t know what to do."

She recalls a blind student whose DSA ran out in April, just before his final exams. He needed a note-taker but the university told him there was nothing it could do.

Overall, however, Dyer does believe that the situation is improving. "It would be unfair to say that universities are not trying hard but there is still a long way to go to ensure they meet the legislation," she says. "For most universities it is about the bottom line and the minimum they have to do. They say they are cash-strapped but universities are multi-million pound businesses. We find it hard when they haggle over £100 worth of support for disabled students."

And even though more than 5 per cent of students are disabled, she finds that attitudes can be difficult to transform.

"I train a lot of universities and talk to members of staff," says Dyer. "But the people at the training sessions are the people who are interested in disability. It’s the people who don’t come who are the ones who need to be trained."

1. Disability Discrimination Act (1995), A Guide for Disabled People, Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities, 2005

‘Attitudes of others are main barrier’

Sarah-Jane Rhead, 22, has ankylosing spondylitis, a rheumatic condition that causes pain in her joints and makes her tired. She finished university this summer and has just started work as a secondary school teacher.

In 2001 Rhead started her degree at a university in south west England. She chose her particular university because it had a good reputation for her chosen subject and had a compact campus, with everything on site and a direct bus into town every few minutes.

Before she went she got in touch with the university to make sure it was suitable for her. With the learning support department’s help she was assured that she would be able to live on site for the duration of her course. This was an unusual concession but her condition would have made it exhausting for her to travel, particularly if she was carrying books.

During her course she received disabled students’ allowances and was able to buy textbooks that she would otherwise have had to carry from the library. She also received a computer as part of the allowance and had internet access in her room.

However, her need for a note-taker for lectures caused difficulties. "The main problem was the attitude of the director of studies. I was not allowed a professional note-taker because he didn’t want a stranger in his lectures. In a lecture hall of 200 students you wouldn’t think that one more would make a difference but apparently it does," she says.

In the end, she shared a student note-taker with others who needed similar help, but this wasn’t ideal as she had to wait several days for photocopied, handwritten notes that weren’t always up to scratch.

Rhead was also awarded enough money to use an amanuensis – a scribe – in her exams. She dictated all her first-year exams, but the amanuensis proved unreliable and so in the second and third years she wrote the answers herself, but was given double the time allowance in which to do so.

Rhead, who gained a first-class degree, says other people’s attitudes are the biggest barrier that disabled people face, as her note-taker discovered when Rhead went on to teacher training after her degree.

"She was asked how someone who needs a note-taker could be a teacher. But I don’t need to write essays to be a teacher," says Rhead.