The Student Support Services Department, located in the Mathematics/Psychology Building, Room 213, provides services for students with disabilities who are registered at UMBC. Students with physical or learning disabilities who want accommodation services are encouraged to register with the department as soon as possible. Students also may qualify for additional tutoring, academic, and counseling services. Those services are located in the AC IV Building, B-wing, 345.
Both the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 state that a university shall provide academic accommodations. Auxiliary aids must be provided which are necessary to ensure that students with disabilities are not "denied the benefits of, excluded from participation in, or otherwise subjected to discrimination in" the program. That is, UMBC is required to make reasonable accommodations to the known physical and cognitive limitations of otherwise qualified students with disabilities, unless it can be demonstrated that either of the following two exceptions pertains:

1. the University can demonstrate that the accommodations are not necessary to ensure nondiscriminatory participation by a disabled student; or
2. the University can demonstrate that the academic requirement for which an adjustment is requested is "essential to the program of instruction being pursued by the student."