The consultation closes in one week.
Before it does, it's worth being clear about what it actually proposes, how those proposals stand up, and what implementing them will lead to.
Proposal 1: AI and free tools are adequate alternatives
The consultation rests on a category error. It asks what these tools can do, not what a specific student can do with them reliably, under pressure, on a difficult day. General AI tools require the user to initiate, articulate, and structure every interaction. That is precisely what executive dysfunction makes hardest. The blank prompt problem is not a minor inconvenience; it is a fundamental mismatch.
Free tools carry hidden costs. Advertising and data collection compete for the attention of students who have the least attention to spare. Usage limits hit at the worst moments. Free tools built by individual developers offer no guarantee of ongoing support, maintenance, or accountability.
Those costs do not disappear if funding is removed. They transfer to the student. Where the replacement is institutional software maintained by universities, the cost transfers there too. A saving to one part of government becomes a charge to another part of the education system.
Proposal 2: Cuts to the DSA will save money
The financial case for DSA is not about sentiment. It is about logic.
37% of students who received DSA funding reported they could not have completed their course without it. If just one in twenty-two DSA students completes a degree they would otherwise have abandoned, the entire annual cost of the scheme is covered by the additional tax and NI those graduates contribute over their working lifetimes.
Cutting the funding will cost money, not save it.
Proposal 3: Cutting software is needed to modernise DSA
The consultation identifies a real problem: some students receive too many software recommendations and engage with few of them. That should be addressed. But the proposal to remove virtually all software from the funding cannot be a sensible solution to this.
A more focused assessment process, built around primary challenges, with a clear route for students to adjust their tools over time, addresses this concern without removing access to the support students rely on.
The consultation should seek input into how the process can work better for students. It doesn’t. The goal is not a better system; it’s simply a reduced one.
Proposal 4: Software will be funded in exceptional circumstances
The proposal that software should be funded only in exceptional circumstances lacks something important. Something that undermines the entire consultation.
The threshold for what constitutes an exceptional circumstance is not defined. We are asked to consult on a proposal that does not define its central mechanism. Every student eligible for the funding could be considered in exceptional circumstances. Or none could.
This is not a minor oversight. It is the central question. And it has been left unanswered.
This is not a reform. It is an ending.
Remove software from DSA funding and the rest of the support available follows. No software means no need for a laptop contribution. No software means no need for training on how to use it. Strip those out, and what remains is study skills support and specialist mentoring. That provision is already under separate review, with the intention of making it a university responsibility.
Follow each proposal to its conclusion and there is no DSA left.
That may not be the stated intention of the consultation. But it is the destination these proposals point toward, taken together.
The consultation closes in one week, on 18th June. If you work with disabled students, you already know what DSA makes possible for them. The question is whether the people making this decision know what they are actually proposing.
Your voice matters in making that clear.
Further reading: Sources and methodology for the figures referenced in this article can be found in a previous analysis: Is the DSA Worth It?