Colleges Are Running Out of Time on Digital Accessibility
Sara Custer
November 6, 2025
New federal rules require all college web content to be accessible by spring 2026. Most institutions are far from ready.
By the spring of next year, public colleges and universities will be required to make sure all their webpages, online course content, and anything in a mobile app is accessible to people with disabilities. Compliance will require serious time and investment, making it prohibitive for many institutions. But the consequences of doing nothing are too serious to ignore.
By the time the April 2026 deadline arrives, institutions will have had nearly two years to update their digital media—the Department of Justice finalized its regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act in April 2024. The new rules require publicly funded entities to ensure that all web and media content adheres to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which means every PDF file must be accessible, every video accompanied by captions and audio descriptions, every sound clip paired with a transcript. Any third-party platform has to meet the guidelines, too.
