This might be a dumb question, but how did they get into college?
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Before anyone starts to mount their high horse, let's focus on the important paragraph in the article.
It’s worth pausing here to point out that you can’t really blame younger people for struggling at what were once seen as academic basics. The school system is in shambles, their education was bisected by the COVID pandemic, and they’re been reared in a world that’s increasingly deemphasized reading in favor of videos, voiceovers, and other emerging forms of communication.
I can gurantee that most children of affluent families suffer less from this. Most of my colleagues in tech spent fortunes in private schools, private online education during covid, and academic training for their kids. Their kids are already interning at companies owned by others in their circles as freshmen. The gap between haves and have-nots is expanding at a truly alarming rate.
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It's bad and seemingly getting worse. And while the headline tries to 'other' these kids, it's not just them. It's Americans in general that are declining:
The news of Gen Z’s waning literacy comes along with a substantial decline in literary acumen among Americans more broadly. Over the last 20 years, for example, the amount of adults reading recreationally in the US has fallen by 40 percent. Meanwhile, a survey of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) found that 59 million Americans are reading at a level one competency or below — the lowest level on the PIAAC’s five-point scale.
Reminds me of a similar article from a couple years ago on this same topic: https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/02/literacy-crisis-reading-comprehension-college.html
The professor that wrote that goes on to mention how even among himself and his colleagues, attention and focus is far from the norm any more:
Even as a career academic who studies the Quran in Arabic for fun, I have noticed my reading endurance flagging. I once found myself boasting at a faculty meeting that I had read through my entire hourlong train ride without looking at my phone. My colleagues agreed this was a major feat, one they had not achieved recently. Even if I rarely attain that high level of focus, though, I am able to “turn it on” when demanded, for instance to plow through a big novel during a holiday break.
I work in a library, older generations are devolving too. The last thing people want to do when in the library is read a book. Or a sign on the door. It's internet, prints and tech help. At least I get to help people with scams but I thought it would be more than just old people and super productive students. But no. Society has checked out here in Montana
And they were accepted? There used to be admission standards. I guess it's more about getting tuition money for the business nowadays, now that the foreign students have been weeded out.
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Sure sure the education system sucks (which has been by design for decades) but if parents are letting their kids go by with poor reading skills then that's a parental failure also, idiots raising idiots essentially.
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Ah. AMERICAN gen-z.
Please tell me it's not so bad for countries with school systems.
Good thing we killed the DOE.
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Funny, I first read this article 35 years ago.. it was just about another generation ba k then.
Do kids not have homework anymore? I thought I heard stuff like this over the years.
I remember reading comprehension assignments as early as like third or fourth grade.
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I find this hard to believe. How did they pass the exams to get in? Are they talking community college or ones with no real entry requirements?
Jesus Christ
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