A reduced course load is referred to by AEO as a modification to a student’s academic program. Students in need of this modifications can petition the Committee on Leaves and privileges, in consultation with AEO.

A reduced course load allows a student to take fewer classes per semester.  However, all Vassar students are required to meet the graduation requirement of 34 units.  So how do students who receive a reduced course load graduate on time? Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.  One student (I’ll call her Jane) says that the only reason she is able to take a reduced course load and will finish school in 8 semesters is because she had many AP credits, and took classes and completed fieldwork over the summers.  Jane also took personal leave one semester and had to petition to take classes while on leave so that she could take a reduced course load and still graduate with enough credits.  Unfortunately, not everyone has so many AP credits and the ability to take summer credits.  Jane says, “If I didn’t have all those things in my favor, I wouldn’t be graduating on time, and if I wouldn’t be graduating in 8 semesters, I couldn’t go to this school because your financial aid runs out.”

In Jane’s opinion, there needs to be some way for students with disabilities to attend school longer without having to pay more.  There needs to be a way for students to work a less rigorous course load if they have they have a disability that makes it take longer for them to get things done.  BUT, as she points out, the principle of accommodations involves changing the way things are done, not what is done.

People would say that Jane should have gone to a less rigorous school if she wanted a less rigorous course load.  But it’s important to recognize that it’s not that Jane can’t handle this level of intellectually rigorous work.  She says, “I can do this level of intellectually rigorous work, I just can’t do four courses of it at a time.”