How to Navigate College With Breast Cancer
Updated on October 9, 2025
If you’re in college or graduate school and have recently been diagnosed with cancer, your first question will likely be whether or not to stay in school during treatment. And if you stay, what will that look like?
As the number of young people diagnosed with breast cancer grows, more people are facing the challenge of navigating college while in treatment or dealing with side effects. Although some students decide to take a break from school until after treatment, or to enroll in a modified or remote academic program, others are staying on campus. And increasingly, colleges are providing more resources to make it easier for students with cancer to stay in school.
Your college might be able to offer special housing options, for example, like a single room or a room closer to your classes. And your school’s disability services office can walk you through what you need to do to get accommodations — changes to your school environment to make it easier to manage classes and schoolwork.
Accommodations have made it possible for people like Natalya Green, founder and CEO of the nonprofit CancerCollegeAlliance, to complete her degree. Green was a 24-year-old PhD student at the University of Florida when she was diagnosed with stage II invasive ductal carcinoma. “It was drastic going from being a student to being a patient,” she says. But Green opted to continue her studies through treatment while living at home. She worked with her college to set up accommodations so she could attend class remotely, work as a teaching assistant, and complete her dissertation. She graduated after completing treatment.
“There were moments I felt it was too much,” she explains. “But attending class also provided an outlet. School was a way of showing ‘I'm doing something for myself even as this disease feels like it's taking other things from me.’”
Accommodations for students with breast cancer
Cancer treatment and side effects from treatment can make it hard to attend class, complete assignments on deadline, and take tests. Even after surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation, you may continue adjuvant treatment for years. At that stage, though parts of your life may have returned to normal, you’re still in treatment and can request accommodations if you need them, explains Cristina Pozo-Kaderman, PhD, a psychologist and director of the Young Adult Program in the Department of Supportive Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and co-author of the upcoming book Coping with Cancer in Early Adulthood.
Colleges are required to provide equal access to students with disabilities. Under federal law, cancer is considered a disability as long as it limits one or more major life activities — such as learning, reading, or interacting with others.
Most colleges have a disability or accessibility services office that helps arrange accommodations, assists with testing, and provides help with special housing needs.
Some accommodations you may want to consider are:
attending classes remotely
access to parking or housing close to classrooms
extra time to complete assignments or testing
flexibility in attendance, what order you take courses, and make-up testing
different assignment or testing formats (such as providing an oral report instead of a written assignment, or recording the oral answers to test questions)
recording lectures or having your professor provide oral recordings or a transcription
asking for a note-taker to accompany you to class
requesting tutors for additional support
comfortable seating close to the door
testing in a quiet environment, or the ability to use headphones or white noise
campus housing on quiet floors or in rooms with private or limited-access bathrooms
To get accommodations, you’ll need to start with your school’s disability services office. They’ll request a letter from your healthcare provider documenting your diagnosis, how the diagnosis affects your everyday life, and what accommodations are needed. Ask your cancer care team for this support letter. This information is confidential and stays within the disability services office. Your school’s disability office can help identify what challenges you’re anticipating and what accommodations might help.
A counselor will help you create a personalized accommodations plan and let you know if more documentation is needed. These plans may be good for a semester or a year before they have to be resubmitted. You may want to talk with the disability office about how to adjust the accommodations, if/as needed.
After your school’s disability office reviews the support letter and OK’s the accommodations, they’ll let the professors know what accommodations are needed. It’s up to you if you want to disclose to professors that you’re being treated for cancer — the office won’t share your diagnosis. But you do want to make sure they’ve received the accommodations information from the disability services office. Once they have, you’ll discuss with them how best to implement the accommodations for their class.
Academic advising
In addition to setting up accommodations, Green suggests talking with your academic advisor for guidance on how to juggle school and treatment for cancer. Advisors can help you work through changes to your graduation timeline, if needed, and provide options for reducing or adjusting your classes during treatment.
Mental health support
Managing your emotional well-being is just as important as managing side effects and your course load. Stress, anxiety, or depression can affect school performance. Professional mental health support and coping strategies can help.
Most colleges offer mental health service support in your school’s counseling center. This can include individual counseling, or even group sessions or workshops on managing stress. Counselors can also offer referrals to therapists and providers in the local community if you need regular sessions.
But keep in mind that they may not always be used to working with people living with cancer. “Try to stay in touch, if possible, with the people where you got treated,” Pozo-Kaderman advises. If you’ve received care at a large cancer center, there are many types of mental health professionals there who you can continue to work with.
Connecting with others with breast cancer
“Cancer can be very lonely — even if you’re in a class, it’s easy to feel isolated,” Green says. If you’re struggling to form relationships with your classmates, online support groups may offer a way to connect with other young people with cancer who understand what you’re going through.
Pink Aid offers a mentorship program to those who have just been diagnosed with breast cancer.
My BCTeam is a free online community forum to connect with others with similar experiences and get advice.
SHARE Cancer Support has virtual support groups who meet by Zoom, as well as online forums for connection with others.
Pink Lemonade Project offers a free monthly virtual support group specifically for young adults with breast cancer.
Scholarships for college students affected by cancer
Scholarships can help offset some of the financial burden of college, especially if your finances have been affected by the cost of cancer care or lost income.
The Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF) Scholarship for Survivors provides $3,000 scholarships to college students under age 25 who were diagnosed with cancer within the past five years.
The Ortlieb Foundation Scholarship provides $1,000 to full-time students with a cancer diagnosis at four-year colleges or universities.
The Dillon Wolford Memorial Scholarship awards $1,000 to college-bound students who have undergone medical treatment.
The National Collegiate Cancer Foundation (NCCF) Survivor Scholarship Program provides $1,000 to young adults age 18 through 35 whose lives have been impacted by cancer.
Remembering you’re not alone
Juggling cancer treatment and side effects, school accommodations, and coursework can be complicated and exhausting, Green says. “But if you have the physical strength to go to school while you’re in treatment and you’re passionate, it can feel so powerful to do it.”
In the future, she said she hopes colleges can do more to support students facing cancer. She created CancerCollegeAlliance to be a space for college students with cancer to come together virtually to learn from one another.
“It’s important for students to remember that you’re not alone. There are other people going through this,” Green says. “Cancer might take your hair, your weight, even parts of your body. Don't let it take away another thing you care about. If that's school, go for it.”