Should Adults with Undiagnosed ADHD at University be Allowed to Retake Courses for Free?
The education system has neglected far too many children
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If you’ve spent more than 10 minutes on TikTok, you’ve probably seen a barrage of people talking about their newly diagnosed ADHD in adulthood.
These people (mostly women) discuss a lot of the symptoms that went completely undetected throughout childhood and led to a pretty difficult transition into adulthood.
I should know. I might not have a TikTok account, but I am one of the many women who have been diagnosed with ADHD in my late twenties. As have quite a few friends of mine.
When you’re diagnosed with ADHD later in life, you suddenly realise how many struggles in your life can be directly related back to your undiagnosed ADHD traits.
Talking with these friends, we discussed the recurring theme of our symptoms getting noticeably out of control when we moved out to go to university.
Perhaps it was having to deal with life alone without the support we didn't realise we were getting at home that helped us through some rough patches. Maybe it was the autonomy of learning that ADHD by its very nature makes really hard if you don’t have it under control, that made university days a living nightmare.
And we realized, that if we all had this experience at university, there must be thousands of people whose ADHD slipped through the educational system net which then directly impacted their university career.
So who’s fault is it that ADHD is commonly undetected in childhood and should universities be obliged to allow students with an ADHD diagnosis in adulthood to retake elements of their course if they wish to?
Table of contents· ADHD and the gender bias
· School expectations on students
· How undiagnosed ADHD at university negatively impacts students
· Should adults that had undiagnosed ADHD at university be allowed to retake their course free of charge?
· So what can be done?
ADHD and the gender bias
Let’s start at the heart of the problem — scientific understanding of ADHD.
What do you think of when you think of ADHD? Unless you’ve researched it, the image of a noisy, disruptive boy that can’t sit still for more than two seconds comes to mind.
And so, the norm for suspecting ADHD has always been that of a hyperactive child.
The problem is that girls often don’t outwardly present ADHD symptoms. Hyperactivity tends to happen in the mind. Extremely imaginative, constantly daydreaming, five thought streams going at any one time.
And that’s where the issue really begins.
Historically, scientific studies in psychology have been androcentric. This means male behaviour is seen as the norm, and females were expected to fit the same criteria, despite obvious differences such as hormone fluctuations and differences in brain composition and chemistry.
Given the fact girls and boys often present vastly different ADHD symptoms, this is a key problem for successful diagnosis to occur, let alone noticing a problem, to begin with.
According to this study from 2011, boys are usually diagnosed with ADHD four times more than girls are. But as we know now, the real prevalence of this neurodivergent learning difficulty is not this heavily skewed towards males.
In fact, this recent article from leading ADHD magazine ADDitude suggests that women tend to develop other mental health illnesses (often perfectionism and anxiety) as a consequence of their undiagnosed ADHD, and it’s these symptoms that cause women to seek professional help for their mental health.
That’s certainly been my personal experience. When I first sought out professional care, it was because my perfectionism and anxiety had become too much to handle and I couldn’t cope anymore. It wasn't until many years later that the word ADHD was even uttered to me by a psychological professional.
So, with diagnosis being so difficult for the female sex, it’s no wonder many women have gone through university undiagnosed and struggling.
School expectations on students
I think it’s fair to say that an extreme gender bias and lack of understanding on the part of psychological diagnosis is a core culprit of missing ADHD.
However, schools aren’t blameless either.
Being at school for eight hours a day, teachers and support staff see you more than your parents do most days!
So they are in the perfect position to notice behaviour.
And before I continue any further, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not blaming teachers for not catching ADHD traits. As a former teacher, I know how many constraints are put on them, and they are taught to only notice certain behaviours that go against school ethos.
So rather than it being a teacher problem, it is indeed a school system ethos problem.
Think about it.
Do you think anyone is bothered if children are sitting at their desks being quiet, not making trouble? No.
Schools love the kids that sit down in silence, don’t chat or disrupt the class, and get good grades.
Do you know which subset of students tends to fit this criteria?
Children with inwardly pointed ADHD symptoms.
At school, I was always quiet, I got great grades, and I didn’t cause trouble. I was a good student that rarely got into trouble. That’s what my teachers saw.
What I experienced was constantly daydreaming in class, chewing gum to resist the urge to talk, behaving perfectly because my rejection sensitivity made me scared of getting in trouble, and getting good grades because of my perfectionist qualities. I dreaded homework and coursework because I could never get myself to start in good time, no matter how much I wanted to, and always did it last minute — which was extremely stressful.
Inwardly, I was struggling. Outwardly, I was thriving. And that’s a common experience of people with undiagnosed ADHD.
You see, as long as you’re meeting school expectations — good behaviour and good grades — they really don’t think anything is wrong.
And because those expectations are drilled into you from an early age, you get so used to wearing a mask that you don’t think there’s anything diagnosable wrong with you. You just think you’re a failure.
So if schools don’t understand potential problems, psychological diagnosis doesn't protect these children, and children aren’t taught potential signs something could be wrong with them, then it’s no wonder that so many people end up leaving school without psychological help and learning interventions they desperately needed to thrive.
How undiagnosed ADHD at university negatively impacts students
At university, you’re suddenly in charge of your entire life. You have no one keeping you accountable to go to class, no parents yelling at you to get your work done, new freedom to set your own timetable, and your own home tasks to keep up with.
Almost all people with ADHD have executive dysfunction. That can lead to any of the following:
- Inability to focus
- Difficulty being active or getting started
- Unable to plan for the future
- Unable to stick to plans
- Poor working memory
- Time blindness
- Inability to stay motivated
- Difficulty controlling emotions
People with ADHD can have any combination of the above, and many more issues associated with executive dysfunction.
At university, you need to be able to focus at will for long periods of time, motivate yourself to study, plan ahead for work and social events, keep up with tasks, and get yourself to lectures.
As you can see from the list of executive dysfunction symptoms, they contradict everything you need to be a successful university student.
And the worst part is, when you have undiagnosed ADHD, you don’t think it’s a biological problem, you just assume you’re lazy, incapable, and will never be good enough.
And a lot of people looking from the outside in will also think that.
It’s extremely destructive for your self-confidence and often manifests into a downward spiral of worsening symptoms and removing yourself from society.
So, it goes without saying, that many people with undiagnosed ADHD at university end up underperforming compared to their actual capabilities.
It’s inevitable.
Which brings us to the main question of this article.
Should adults that had undiagnosed ADHD at university be allowed to retake their course free of charge?
This question ultimately boils down to a battle between morals and financial gain.
For all the learning opportunities a university education provides, it’s well documented that as an institution, most countries provide universities that value money over student outcomes.
They’ve become institutions known for elitism and rising prices. In the UK, the price for attending university is currently £9,000/ year. Which is still nothing compared to countries such as the USA whose universities can charge around $50,000/ year.
And most of us take out hefty loans for the privilege of attending these institutions that promise to provide us with an education that will set us up for life.
So if people with undiagnosed ADHD were unable to properly access education and didn’t have the knowledge or resources necessary to even realise there was an issue, did they really receive what they paid for?
I can imagine the response of university leaders will be pretty simple.
Sorry, but it’s not our problem.
Which I wouldn’t be surprised about. Universities aren’t state-owned and they aren’t obligatory so their connection with the department of education is much more complicated.
But the fault does not lie with the individual at all. People with undiagnosed ADHD are victims of a school system that values potentially problematic traits and a psychological history whose misogyny left women in a place of vulnerability.
So what can be done?
In my opinion, the right thing to do would be for the government to issue grants to any adult who has been diagnosed with ADHD after university to retake their course if they wish to.
After all, the government is ultimately responsible for the protection of children throughout the educational system, and the fact so many people were left undiagnosed is a systemic flaw that should be rectified.
However, with the impending recession, rising bills, and dire societal problems around the world, it’s unlikely funds will be distributed in this way.
And I highly doubt universities will take a moral high ground and offer free positions for adult ADHDers, even if it were an independent, online course.
So the most likely solution is no solution.
But it’s definitely something we should be discussing. The government should be held liable for its shortcomings in protecting and supporting vulnerable children.
Especially when it comes off the back of a systemic gender bias.
But considering that the shortcomings don’t begin and end with ADHD, I doubt they have the capacity to right their wrongs.
So, instead, we have to continue pushing for better psychological diagnostic tools to ensure that the kids of today don’t suffer the same avoidable struggles we did.
