Meeting ADA Title II Compliance:
Building Sustainable Accessibility Practices in Higher Education

With the ADA Title II digital accessibility compliance deadline for many public entities now set for April 2027, colleges and universities have more time to prepare, but not less responsibility. While the deadline extension offered institutions additional runway, it also caused momentum to slow in some cases as accessibility initiatives competed with other institutional priorities. The expectation for compliance, however, remains unchanged, making it more important than ever for institutions to evaluate where progress has continued, where it has stalled, and what steps are needed to move forward. "The extension changed the deadline, but it did not change the obligation," says Laura M. Romeo, Ph.D., Director of Digital Learning Innovation, Scholarship, and Educational Services, Edge. "Institutions now have more time to plan, prioritize, and organize their accessibility efforts, and that's a meaningful opportunity. This doesn't mean inaccessible content is suddenly acceptable or that accessibility work can be put on hold without consequences.

"The additional time should be used to strengthen the work that's often easiest to postpone, including governance, policies, ownership, prioritization, and documentation. It's understandable that many institutions felt a sense of relief when the deadline was extended. Others felt they were already behind and wondered how much difference the extra time would make. Both reactions are valid. The important thing now is to turn that reaction into a plan instead of allowing accessibility to slip behind the next hiring cycle, platform migration, or competing institutional priority. That's how momentum is maintained."

Challenges on the Path to Compliance
Many institutions are actively working to improve digital accessibility, but progress can slow without a shared strategy. "Institutions aren't stuck because people don't care, but because the work is spread across so many different teams that no one has the full picture," explains Romeo. "Compliance officers are tracking risk, web teams are maintaining websites, IT is managing systems, instructional designers are supporting faculty, and procurement is evaluating vendors. Everyone is doing important work, but that work can still be disconnected. The biggest gaps are usually not technical, but organizational.

"Many institutions think they have a remediation problem first, but they actually have a governance problem. Fixing issues is crucial, but if the underlying processes do not change, the same accessibility barriers continue to reappear. Policy, ownership, and clear workflows create the structure that moves institutions from reacting to individual issues toward building sustainable accessibility practices."

Creating an accessibility policy is about more than documenting expectations. "When Edge is building or revising an accessibility policy, we start with the fundamentals: What content and systems does it cover? What accessibility standards are we following? Who owns the work, who makes decisions, and who gets involved when there's an issue?" shares Romeo. "We also include procurement and vendor expectations because accessibility should be considered before a project even gets underway. A policy shouldn't just be a statement that sits on a shelf, but includes procedures for implementation, issue intake, prioritization, remediation, escalation, and ongoing review."

Long-term efforts also depend on helping faculty see accessibility as a teaching practice that benefits all students, not simply another compliance requirement. "What moves the needle is connecting accessibility to something faculty already care about," says Romeo. "When you lead with 'this is a legal requirement,' you often get compliance theater, meaning people go through the motions without changing how they build their courses. But when the conversation shifts to student experience and to the research on how accessible design benefits everyone, that's when something clicks. The institutions I've seen make real progress have found faculty champions, even just one or two, who can carry that message peer to peer. It lands so differently coming from a colleague than it does coming from an IT department or a legal team."