Going to university is apparently

now a "right" if you are "neurodivergent". 

I am still not sure what "neurodivergent" means to the people who are telling me this.  It does not seem to mean the young man I once met who was so severely dyslexic he could not read. He was also highly intelligent and had gone through school with the help of his mother and a school which treated him as if he was blind for the purposes of learning. He did go on to university with the help of more "readers" but he also worked incredibly hard - harder than most students I know.

The adjustments made for him were necessary and fair. He was also prepared to do the work, indeed do the extra work required of him. I have no issues with that at all.

I do have issues with students saying that adjustments must be made for them because they find the university style of learning does not suit them. There is one student in a recent report saying the curriculum "does not suit (her) needs". There is another saying "the lecture room is too noisy".  Perhaps the first student is simply not doing a course suited to them. The second student needs to be aware that there is a partially hearing student in some of the same classes. That student sits at the front of the class. Yes, I know it is not quite the same thing but the student is making the adjustment there - and his teachers appreciate it. Good teaching is generally considered to require interaction between teacher and students. There will be noise at times.

The man in the unit across the way from me is doing a degree by "distance" learning. He is studying "on line". He attends lectures this way. It is not easy. "You can't always hear what another student says but it is the nature of on line learning," he told me recently.  As an older student he is making adjustments for this. 

I still give help here and there to students who ask for it. I am also aware there are other students who seem to be fragile and unable to cope with the work required of them without extra help.  They have been nurtured through school with "extra help" and "extra time" and "consideration". They have been given extra tuition and their anxious parents have demanded papers be remarked and higher grades given. More than one teacher has given in to the pressure. 

Are these students really worthy of it. Do they really have these "neurodivergent" issues it is claimed they have? If so, how do we help them? Is it reasonable to expect other students to accept these students need so much extra assistance? 

Or should we start recognising that not everyone can do everything and that getting to the top also requires us to work?