Students are attracted to the University of Oslo on the basis of academic quality; the University’s social environment, however, retains its poor reputation, with a mere 7% of applicants giving emphasis to social aspects in explaining their choice of the University of Oslo. The corresponding figure for other Norwegian universities ranged from 22% to 55%. As many as 36% of applicants to institutions of higher education consider welfare important at the university of their choice. Helge Kjøllesdal, the University of Oslo’s Information Manager, accounts for this with the improved accommodation market for students. He also says that the University offers its students a good social life, but that it takes years to build a reputation.

Roar Fikkan of the University’s Division for Quality of Teaching and Learning Environment, asserts that the learning platform Classfronter excludes visually impaired students. The reasons is that the navigational tool Leselist, which is used by students to read information on the Internet, does not work in Classfronter. Instead, visually impaired students are provided with separate systems. Fikkan reports that numerous visually impaired students have contacted the division to complain that they are excluded from the ordinary learning collective processes.