Gen Z’s path to adulthood has been anything but smooth. The pandemic-era disruption of classes, the rise of social media, and increased political tension erupted during their formative years — leaving many with difficulty concentrating, stress, and mental health challenges.
This reality is appearing on campuses. A growing share of college students are seeking medical evaluations for ADHD, anxiety and depression — and requesting academic accommodations, such as more time on tests and assignments.
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At some of the country’s most selective universities, the numbers are staggering: more than 20% of graduates at Brown and Harvard are registered as people with disabilities. At UMass Amherst, the rate is 34%, and at Stanford, 38%, according to data analyzed by The Atlantic.
While it’s clear that many students who request accommodations do so for legitimate medical reasons — and that the rise in diagnoses may reflect greater awareness about mental health — some experts have raised concerns about overdiagnosis and whether universities are making it too easy for students to qualify.
The debate has ignited social media recently, drawing the attention of prominent business leaders, including Joe Lonsdale, the billionaire venture capital investor and co-founder of the technology company Palantir.
Lonsdale’s response brought no sympathy. “Losing generation,” he wrote when reacting to a graph showing the growth in the number of graduates reporting disabilities.
“At Stanford, though, this is a shortcut to housing, and at some point I even understand it, even though it’s not my personal ethics. Terrible leadership from the university.”
He argued that families have gradually been using disability accommodations to give their children an academic advantage — even when they may not need them.
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“Claiming your child has a disability to give you an advantage has become an obvious dominant strategy, from a game theory perspective, for honorless parents in the 2010s,” Lonsdale wrote earlier this month in X. “Great sign to avoid a family/don’t do business with parents who act like this.”
And while it’s unclear how many students, if any, are trying to game the system, Lonsdale made his broader view clear: He doesn’t think universities are preparing young people — or evaluating them — in ways that really matter.
“No big company is interested in the make-believe games played by universities,” he added.
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Fortune reached out to Lonsdale for additional comment.
Although he is a Stanford alumnus, Lonsdale has a complicated relationship with the institution and higher education in general.
In the early 2010s, while serving as a mentor on a technology entrepreneurship course at Stanford, Lonsdale was accused of sexual assault by a female student — and banned from mentoring undergraduates for 10 years, in addition to being banned from campus.
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The assault charges were later dropped, but Lonsdale acknowledged violating a rule prohibiting consensual relationships between mentors and students.
Less than a decade later, in 2021, Lonsdale co-founded his own school — the University of Austin — with Niall Ferguson, Bari Weiss, and others.
The institution is proud to defend freedom of expression and overcome the “mediocrity” of traditional higher education. It welcomed its first cohort of graduates last fall and remains unaccredited.
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The school has attracted support from fellow Palantir co-founder and Stanford alumnus Alex Karp, who has also criticized the university system.
“Everything you learned in your school and college about how the world works is intellectually incorrect,” Palantir CEO Karp told CNBC earlier this year.
Instead, the 58-year-old executive said, Palantir is building a new credential “separate from class or origin” that would be the “best credential in technology.”
“If you didn’t go to college, or you went to a not-so-good college, or you went to Harvard, Princeton or Yale, when you join Palantir, you’re a Palantirian,” Karp said during an earnings call earlier this year. “No one cares about the rest.”
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