A deaf student said that they have been forced to quit their masters course after the university’s miscalculation meant funding for a sign language interpreter fell through.
International student Chelsea Reinschmidt, 41, has withdrawn from their MSc in occupational therapy at Brighton University after already forking out more than £10,000 for flights, housing deposits and visa charges.
Just last week they were told that they either had to leave their course or transfer to another subject because the university could not fund their access needs.
Chelsea Reinschmidt had secured funding for sign language interpretation during classes through their US student loan, based on the university’s calculation for the number of hours of interpreting services they would need.
But when the university revised its calculation because the need for two interpreters due to placements and workload on the course, Chelsea’s US student loan company would not add the revised amount to the loan.
Despite offering to try assistive technologies to make their funding last longer, Chelsea was told in a meeting at the university last week that they could not continue on their course.
Chelsea said: “My student loans said it’s not ethical to add that much on to my loan and have that be my cost burden.
“When the meeting happened, I was shocked. I started crying and had to leave the room and literally broke down sobbing.
“It’s devastating. I’m trying to remain strong and positive and just try to fight it as best I can.
“This is a problem for home UK deaf students as well because the disabled students’ allowance (DSA) limit is far less than what is required for the licensing requirements, and this is true of all the healthcare programs.
“It’s a system that is effectively preventing deaf people from becoming healthcare professionals.”
Chelsea was initially told by the university disability team, which was organising interpreting services for them, that they could receive the same amount that UK students get towards their access arrangements from the UK government – £26,000 for students receiving the disabled students’ allowance.
Chelsea offered to cover the remaining cost of interpreting services through disability expenses on their US student loan – despite maintaining that it is not their responsibility to pay for their own reasonable adjustments.
Under the Equality Act 2010, universities are legally obliged to ensure that courses are accessible for disabled learners and this obligation applies to all students, including international students.
While failure to make reasonable adjustments is a form of disability discrimination, there is no legal definition of what is a reasonable cost for universities to pay towards access arrangements because what is reasonable in one set of circumstances may not be reasonable in another.
In emails to Chelsea, seen by Brighton and Hove News, the university has also said that it cannot support peer fundraising for Chelsea’s interpreter.
The university kept Chelsea registered on the course because of their visa arrangements and offered a course transfer, but they have now officially withdrawn from the course.
Chelsea has submitted a formal complaint to the university.
Chelsea said: “I got into several of the universities I applied for but unfortunately a few said they can’t fund interpreters for me.
“There were a lot of barriers and only the University of Brighton decided to accept me.
“They said they were very excited to have me as a student. I’d be the first deaf one in the program MSc occupational therapy at University of Brighton.”
The university said: “Almost one third of our students have a registered disability and we provide support to them all, wherever in the world they come from.
“The costs of supporting students with disabilities can be significant and students from the UK can apply for up to £26,000 a year towards those costs via the government’s disability support allowance.
“Unfortunately, this scheme is not available to students from outside the UK, so we use our own funds to create an individual support package for each international student.
“We are clear where they must also be able to secure funding from elsewhere, including from their country of origin.
“This is something we discuss and agree during the application process to ensure students are fully aware of the requirements.
“The university appoints a learning disability co-ordinator to refine the support each student requires and they are involved in agreeing this prior to the start of a student’s course.
“We are currently working with an international student to understand why they haven’t been able to obtain the funding we agreed must come from their country of origin or other personal resources.
“The student has not been removed from their course and we will continue to support them through this process.”
“The university appoints a learning disability co-ordinator…”
Does the university view deafness as a learning disability?
The university doesn’t know anything about Deafness…but this isn’t uncommon for universities that do not get a lot of Deaf students….the dyslexia in the name of the disability service is very confusing. It suggests that the only disabilities that really are prioritized are learning differences. But the truth is that any accomodations that cost money for them are things they do not want to deal with. There’s a lot of ableist language in the learning support plan and a lot of misunderstanding about what Deafness even is. Certainly, they needed to not accept me to the course because they clearly aren’t prepared for Deaf students. The idea that a Deaf student needs to be required to pay £100,000 a year for interpreters to access the course at all….this is for basic communication access to the course…there’s no question that this isn’t equal access. If every student had to pay £100,000 extra on top of tuition….there would be no students in the program.
So sorry Chelsea, this is so unfair for you.
University of Brighton is clearly in crisis…staff not being paid, ongoing industrial action… impacting upon students and prospective students.
I think if the University is at fault it should make good and not try to dodge responsibility.
Yes. What the university claims is definitely false. The details of the article are not entirely accurate but that is because the system is so complicated that even though the reporter had the emails and evidence she had trouble figuring out where the money should come from and how it was applied. The university did not even figure out what it would cost until I had already moved my entire life over to the UK. Long after they had accepted me. The expectation was that even though it’s not ok, I would add on an undefined amount to my student loan thousands of pounds…..but £100,000 that was not anticipated. There’s no way I could fund that. I tried to get student loans to add as much as they could but I agree there’s no way. And this isn’t equal access. The university should have never accepted me. They can’t afford to teach me then they can’t accept me.
UK universities have £2.6 billion sitting on their Balance Sheets. Is it beyond the wit of man for them to pay into a pooled fund to cover rare costs like these?
They claim they have no money. I don’t know. I don’t have their financial information to know if this is true or not. All I know is if DSA covers 27,000 that’s not nearly enough to get through the program. So where does the rest come from? Because there isn’t a huge Deaf grant anyone not even home students can apply for so? There’s no access. You can’t just say oh well I know this is a year long. We have money for 2 months. Can you come back next year and just complete the program in 2 month chunks over 10 years? 🤷🏼♀️ it’s ridiculous. This isn’t an international student issue. This is a Deaf student access issue. But I offered to take interpreters out for some of the lessons too and just read captions and use an AAC device which is free. They refused. They also refused fundraising for this purpose. So🤷🏼♀️ it sounds like they don’t want me there and are just trying to find every avenue to kick me out. Idk 🤷🏼♀️🙃
I’m so sorry this happened. I don’t know how your experience will be but most students’ experiences with the complaints procedures at UK universities is terrible – the system is designed against students, and the Office of the “Independent” Adjudicator is run by organisations that defend universities, with the toothless NUS (National Union of Students) there in a token manner to allow the OIA to claim students are represented. Yet if you skip and go straight to a judge, the judge can find against you and claim you should have gone to the OIA. Maybe you can find a good UK solicitor who specialises in helping international students, as the University of Brighton has stolen thousands of pounds from you along with an education.