Published on 10/07/2025
Are your graduate computing programs unintentionally excluding brilliant minds?
Graduate school is inherently challenging, especially at the doctoral level. Students with disabilities navigate formal and informal accessibility issues on top of the standard academic challenges. By focusing on equitable access rather than just compliance with legal requirements, faculty and administrators can help bridge the gap in educational experiences between disabled and non-disabled students. Closing this gap isn’t just about fairness—it’s about fueling innovation and excellence.
This guide presents prioritized actions to address institutional barriers and help institutions build truly disability-inclusive cultures in their graduate computing programs.
J. Esch and B. Blaser. 2025. Improving Access and Equity for Graduate Students with Disabilities. In Proceedings of the 2025 Conference for Research on Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT ’25), July 14-16, 2025, Newark, NJ, USA. ACM, NY, NY. 6 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3704637.3734729
Graduate computing programs are launchpads for innovative careers, yet a persistent access gap limits opportunities for graduate students with disabilities, particularly at the doctoral level. This paper therefore argues for targeted interventions to increase educational equity. We draw from the literature to outline key challenges and institutional barriers. We then propose prioritized actions for universities, which include crafting graduate-specific accommodation policies, enhancing assistive technology support, improving the accessibility of research materials and activities, and building disability-inclusive cultures. By building on existing disability support infrastructure—which currently focuses on undergraduates—institutions can broaden participation in graduate-level computing education.
Produced in partnership with AccessComputing. To learn more about AccessComputing, visit: washington.edu/accesscomputing/
