The State of Accessible Commencement: What We Learned from the 2026 Higher Education Commencement Season

Accessibility is no longer an afterthought. It's becoming part of the celebration.

For graduates, commencement marks the culmination of years of hard work. For families, it is one of life's most meaningful milestones. Unlike a lecture or campus event, commencement is a once-in-a-lifetime celebration that cannot simply be repeated, making accessibility especially important for graduates, families, and guests.

As colleges and universities continue to expand accessibility at commencement, one trend has become increasingly clear: institutions are thinking beyond compliance and focusing on creating celebrations that every guest can experience.

During the Spring 2026 commencement season, Aberdeen supported 39 colleges and universities across the United States, providing accessibility services for 279 commencement ceremonies totaling 694 hours of live event support. While every institution approached accessibility differently, several common themes emerged that point toward the future of inclusive commencement experiences.

Commencement Accessibility Is Growing

Accessible commencement is no longer limited to a handful of institutions or a single accommodation. Compared to the previous year, universities expanded both the scale of their ceremonies and the accessibility services supporting them.

Between Spring 2025 and Spring 2026:

• Institutions supported grew from 26 to 39
• Commencement ceremonies increased from 156 to 279
• Live accessibility hours increased from 395.5 to 694

Growth wasn't concentrated within one segment of higher education. Public universities, private institutions, community colleges, faith-based universities, medical schools, and research institutions all expanded accessible commencement experiences.

Perhaps even more encouraging, 13 institutions partnered with Aberdeen for commencement for the first time, reflecting growing interest across higher education.

Rather than treating accessibility as a specialized service, many institutions are beginning to view it as a standard part of the commencement experience.

Accessibility is About Families, Not Just Students

Commencement has always celebrated student achievement, but universities increasingly recognize that these ceremonies are equally about the families, friends, and communities who supported graduates along the way.

As a result, accessibility is no longer viewed through a single lens. Some guests benefit from live English captions, while others rely on multilingual subtitles or translated audio to fully experience the ceremony. For family members unable to attend in person, livestream accessibility extends that same experience beyond the venue. Others simply find captions helpful for following along in large venues or noisy environments.

This Spring, participating institutions offered accessibility in 22 languages, reflecting the linguistic diversity of the graduates, families, and communities they serve.

Top translated languages by service hours

Languages were selected based on the needs of graduates, families, and guests.

While Spanish remained the most frequently requested language, institutions also provided Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hebrew, and many others based on the needs of their graduates and families.

Rather than offering multilingual access simply because the technology exists, universities increasingly selected languages intentionally, recognizing the communities they serve.

Technology is Removing Traditional Barriers

Not long ago, the accessibility options available for commencement were often dictated by the venue. If a facility lacked captioning infrastructure, interpretation equipment, or streaming capabilities, institutions had limited flexibility in the services they could offer.

Advances in cloud-based delivery, browser-based captions, AI-powered translation, and mobile access are changing that. Today, universities have far greater control over how accessibility is delivered, both inside the venue and to guests joining remotely.

California State University, Long Beach illustrates this shift. After previously relying on venue-provided captioning services that did not meet expectations, returning commencement ceremonies to campus allowed the university to select accessibility solutions that better aligned with its goals. At the same time, the addition of a browser-based streaming player ensured that captions, multilingual subtitles, and voice translations were available to family members watching from anywhere.

Rather than being limited by the capabilities of a venue, institutions are increasingly able to design an accessibility experience that best serves their graduates, families, and guests.

Accessibility Begins Long Before the Ceremony

One of the most noticeable trends this season had nothing to do with captioning technology. It was communication.

The institutions seeing the greatest engagement treated accessibility as part of the overall guest experience, not simply as an accommodation available upon request. Rather than waiting for attendees to discover these services on their own, they introduced them before guests arrived and reinforced their availability throughout the event.

California State University, Long Beach incorporated accessibility information into its "Know Before You Go" communications, helping guests understand what services would be available before they arrived on campus. UC Santa Cruz promoted live captions and multilingual translation through QR codes, presentation slides, printed materials, and on-site signage throughout commencement.

These institutions recognized an important principle: accessibility is only effective when guests know it exists. Clear communication before and during the ceremony helps ensure that captions, translations, and other accessibility services are used by the people they were intended to support.

To help institutions plan future events, Aberdeen has assembled an In-Person Events Promotion Toolkit with examples of pre-event communications, signage, QR code placement, presentation slides, and other best practices for increasing guest awareness and participation.

Accessibility Beyond the Venue

For many institutions, one of the biggest accessibility advancements this commencement season wasn't a captioning technology. It was how accessibility was delivered.

Traditionally, in-person guests and remote viewers often had different experiences. Accessibility inside the venue depended on the equipment available, while livestream viewers were often limited by the capabilities of the streaming platform itself. Most mainstream platforms support only basic live accessibility features, typically limiting institutions to a single translated language or a single live audio translation during the event. Additional languages are often only available after the livestream has concluded.

Aberdeen's browser-based streaming player removes those limitations. Instead of relying on the accessibility features built into a streaming platform, universities can provide a dedicated viewing experience that combines the live video with synchronized captions, multilingual subtitles, and AI-powered voice translations. This enables multiple languages to be available simultaneously during the live event while delivering a consistent experience for guests attending in person and those watching remotely.

The same experience extended to guests attending in person. Rather than requiring dedicated receivers or venue-provided hardware, attendees could simply scan a QR code and follow along on their own phones using the same captions, translations, and audio available through the livestream.

For California State University, Long Beach, this flexibility was particularly valuable. Returning commencement ceremonies to campus meant the university was no longer limited to the accessibility resources provided by an outside venue. Combined with the streaming player, accessibility became available both inside the ceremony and for family members watching remotely.

Human Expertise and AI Continue to Complement One Another

Every multilingual commencement begins with a high-quality English caption feed.

For the Spring 2026 season, 612 hours of English captions were created by professional human captioners, while 82 hours used Aberdeen's ASR Writer. Those English captions then became the foundation for AI-powered subtitles and voice translations, helping families experience ceremonies in the language they understand best.

English Caption Sources (Spring 2026)

Professional human captioners remained the primary workflow, while ASR expanded as an additional option.

Note: These figures represent the source of the English captions only. AI-powered translation was used to generate multilingual subtitles and audio translations for supported languages regardless of the English caption source.

This distinction is important. The chart above represents only the source of the English captions. Once accurate English captions are available, Aberdeen's AI translation technology can generate live subtitles and audio translations in over 100 languages, regardless of whether the English captions originated from a professional captioner or ASR.

Rather than replacing one another, human expertise and AI work together. Professional captioners continue to be the preferred choice for many commencement ceremonies because they can make editorial decisions that improve the guest experience. During graduate name reading, for example, captioners typically omit long sequences of student names and resume captioning when speakers return to remarks or announcements.

ASR, by contrast, continuously transcribes speech and may attempt to caption every name without extensive preparation and custom vocabularies. As ASR technology continues to improve, it is becoming a practical option for more events. In both cases, AI translation extends accessibility well beyond English, allowing more families to fully participate in the celebration.

Building on Shared Success

While every institution's commencement is unique, one trend became increasingly apparent throughout the Spring 2026 season: universities are learning from one another.

Many of the institutions that adopted new accessibility services this year first encountered these approaches through conversations with peer universities, recommendations from trusted colleagues, or demonstrations at higher education conferences. As successful implementations become more visible, accessibility is becoming less about trying something new and more about adopting practices that have already proven successful elsewhere.

This collaborative exchange of ideas continues to accelerate the adoption of accessible commencement experiences across higher education.

Looking Ahead

The Spring 2026 commencement season demonstrated that accessibility is becoming a more intentional part of commencement planning.

Institutions are evaluating accessibility earlier in the planning process, communicating services more proactively, selecting languages based on the needs of their communities, and extending accessible experiences beyond the venue through mobile devices and livestreams. They are also choosing the combination of human expertise and AI technologies that best supports the goals of each ceremony.

The season also reflected a broader shift in how universities view accessibility. Rather than focusing on individual accommodations, institutions are designing commencement experiences that enable more graduates, families, and guests to participate fully, whether they are attending in person or joining remotely.

As technology continues to remove barriers and institutions continue to share successful practices, accessibility is becoming an expected part of commencement planning and an increasingly important part of celebrating student achievement.