#mark schneider

By: Mark Schneider

Published: Dec 9, 2025

I have four grandchildren, three of whom have been diagnosed with learning disabilities. At different times, they have had Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), legally binding documents under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), or 504 plans, which are rooted in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Both documents specify the accommodations students must be given to help them learn.

I have watched my daughters fight like tiger moms to get their kids the services they deserve by law. I have also watched with dismay as my granddaughter was treated badly by the Wake County, NC, public school system, despite her disabilities. (She is now enrolled in a private school, where she is flourishing.)

Most of us have encountered parents who were fierce advocates for getting their children accommodations in school. But as is the case with my upper-middle-class daughters, success in getting accommodations is often affected by the class and education background of parents who are seeking services, a disparity that is likely exacerbated by differences in who gets IEPs and who gets 504 plans.

The more widely used IEP is an entitlement program that details procedures and processes to provide a “free and appropriate public education.” In contrast, 504 plans are based in anti-discrimination laws and do not have the same complex requirements and safeguards as IEPs, giving schools far more discretion in granting 504 plans compared to IEPs. In turn, 504 plans are the result of often intense negotiations involving school officials, evaluators, and parents, and data consistently show that low-income students are more likely to have IEPs while more advantaged students have 504 plans. Finally, students in colleges and universities can use their high school IEPs or 504 plans to argue for accommodations in college.

In the past, learning disabilities were (unfortunately and inappropriately) stigmatized. For some disabilities, such as ADHD, that stigma is largely gone. In fact, these disabilities are often coveted, especially by parents, who can wield disability status as a tool to increase their children’s odds of success in K–12 schools.

Among the most frequent accommodations granted to students with disabilities is extra time to complete tests and assignments. Understandably, many parents, especially higher income ones, view disabled status as a way of getting their children a leg up in testing, aiding them in their quest to ensure their children get into the best colleges. Indeed, one of the strategies used in the 2019 Varsity Blues scandal, in which college admissions counselors helped well-to-do families game the system, was to have children fake a disability to get accommodations while taking the SAT.

The appeal of accommodations is one of the factors that has helped increase the percentage of special education students in schools. In 2000, about 13 percent of students had IEPs. In 2022, that proportion increased to 15 percent. Another 3 percent or so have 504 plans. While IEPs are more common, studies find that affluent school districts have seen a rapid increase in students with 504 plans.

Not surprisingly, postsecondary institutions are also enrolling more students with disabilities, leading to a rapid increase in the provision of accommodations. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) reports the percentage of undergraduates with disabilities at any given institution if over 3 percent of its student body is so classified. In 2013, only 911 schools crossed that threshold. By 2023, the number increased to 1,675. Over that same decade, the proportion of students with disabilities across all schools grew from 7 percent to 9.4 percent. But that growth varied by institution type, going from 8 percent to just over 9 percent at private not-for-profit schools but more than doubling from 7 percent to over 15 percent at Ivy League schools.

As shown in Table 1, private not-for-profit universities have the highest concentration of students with disabilities. That proportion is even higher at the eight Ivy League universities. The lowest concentration is among public two-year institutions (community colleges).

The disproportionate expansion of special education students at selective institutions is of particular interest. My tiger mom daughters did what they had to do to help their children, and my oldest grandson was just admitted to a selective college—a school that offers lots of accommodations for students with disabilities.

As with so many well-meaning government programs designed to help less advantaged students, Section 504 has become another tool to help well-off students win in the competitive game of college admissions.

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Incentives explain outcomes.

By: Mark Schneider

Published: Jan 14, 2026

Last November, a faculty report from UC San Diego showed that over the past five years, the number of freshmen placed in remedial math had increased thirtyfold. Reactions ranged from sober warnings about declining readiness to claims of a collegiate “math horror show.” In response, some commentators argued that treating the findings as a problem reflected a culture-war misunderstanding about equity, student success, or what colleges “really do.”

That reaction entirely misses the point. The UC San Diego report exposed something far more consequential. American colleges are failing at one of their core economic functions: They are no longer acting as credible gatekeepers for employers.

For decades, a degree from a selective college meant something. Employers could assume they were hiring from the top of the talent pool. Not because colleges magically transformed students, but because admissions and subsequent academic standards filtered for readiness, persistence, and cognitive skills. Colleges did the sorting up front, so employers didn’t have to.

That system is now weakening, largely thanks to the choices made by colleges and universities themselves.

An analysis of admissions and transcript records from a selection of elite colleges found that standardized test scores were far better predictors of first-year academic performance than high school GPA, even after accounting for race, gender, and socioeconomic status. The research showed that students admitted without test scores perform much worse in college courses than their peers who were admitted with test scores. In other words, tests contain real information, and colleges know it.

So why have so many institutions abandoned them? A recent paper on test-optional admissions offers a blunt answer: social pressure.

While standardized tests have always had their detractors, the post-George Floyd “social justice” movement and the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the test-optional cause dramatically. In jumping on this bandwagon, colleges made a mistake. They abandoned a valuable measuring stick that can credibly determine if the students they admit are prepared for the rigors of college academics.

UC San Diego made that mistake. The University of California system went test-blind in admissions in 2020, meaning admissions officers there do not consider standardized test scores even when students submit them. The downstream effects are visible, as documented by the faculty report cited above. When large numbers of students at a selective institution require remediation in foundational skills, employers will have less reason to believe the degree signals competence.

All of this occurs in a broader context where higher education is losing ground:

A 2022 analysis of more than 51 million job postings documented a broad “degree reset,” with employers dropping bachelor’s-degree requirements in many roles while keeping the underlying skill demands intact.

Almost half of Americans now say a college degree matters less than it did 20 years ago.

The share of high school students who expect to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher has fallen to a 20-year low.

A growing cohort of recent graduates struggle to find work that matches their education.

Reports of grade inflation and lighter academic expectations are deepening the ambiguity about what a college degree now signifies.

Even with this recent decline in confidence in higher education, employers are still recruiting from a handful of colleges, especially elite ones. The combination of AI and the ease of applying to jobs online leads to a flood of applicants who all look the same to employers. There’s so much noise in these data that employers are looking for a signal—and, knowing that a degree from an elite university once meant something, they are again relying on such degrees from a shrinking pool of schools to differentiate candidates from one another.

Mark Schneider as King Ceorge III!

Good grief he's hot. He has such big DILF energy.

Also never have I ever wished that George would have remained the king of the North American continent. Man I wish Benedict Arnold had gotten away with those documents.

Gimme gimme gimme that your fantastic man.

So darn attractive. JUST LOOK AT HIS EYES. NOSE l, Personality AND FACE.

dont own this image

Mark Schneider does really look like napoleon

Duke of Wellington!

Georgie

Messy hair