Students experience of accessing support at university.

With the number of disabled students in Higher Education (HE) increasing year on year, student support services, which offer much needed provision to this heterogenous group of students, have been affected by cuts in Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) forcing university to become more creative with their funds. There is moreover still a significant gap in achievement, progression and retention between disabled students and their peers and it is therefore important to review students’ experiences of accessing specialist support services whilst at university.
This small pilot study explores the experience of two students in their final undergraduate year at a south east England university which is part of the Russell group. It reveals issues and concerns around systems and processes associated with DSA. The main purpose of this pilot is to determine the viability of extending the research into a fuller investigation as part of a doctoral thesis.