Disabled College Students and Accessibility on Public College Campuses

There are many benefits to accessibility features in public places. According to The Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, “guarantees that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else”. Unfortunately on many college campuses across the country, the idea of equal opportunity for many disabled students is simply implausible. This research discusses the success of accessibility measures on public college campuses in South Carolina for disabled students and measured the ADA indicators that are required for public spaces by asking students whether or not they think their college has all of these requirements. This study safely analyzes and compares the extent to which students without disabilities and students with disabilities are able to interact with both their campus and other students/staff. Causal-comparative and case study methods will be used for this research. The case study method has the ability to qualitative data, while the causal-comparative method gathers quantitative data. The correlation test used in this research, was statistically significant with a P-value of 0.045, however, the data is opposite of the hypothesized results. The Chi Squared test is not statistically significant with a P-value of 0.887 for ADA compliance, implying that there is no difference in the compliance at each University, therefore, a significant relationship can not be determined by these results and the null hypothesis cannot be rejected