This article is based on results of the project "Access to a Higher Education for Handicapped People," conducted in 2002-2003 by a group of Saratov sociologists including one of the authors, Iarskaia-Smirnova, who served as the director. It generalizes the experience of young handicapped people in acquiring a higher education and shows the urgency of their problem gaining access to educational services and explores the characteristics of what goes by the name of integrated education for handicapped students in the specific sociocultural environment of the higher educational institution. Findings of the study reveal that in spite of the fact that there are federal laws guaranteeing benefits to secondary school graduates with disabilities, a number of factors complicate their enrollment in a college or university. Most universities in Russia are not even minimally equipped with the necessary conditions and most institutions of higher learning do not offer any programs whatsoever to retrain or upgrade the qualifications of instructors who work with handicapped people. (Contains 2 tables and 13 notes.)