Fortune magazine reports that Gen Z students are making it into college "unable to even read a sentence" and this worries professors. Their concern? It could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates.
Let that soak in.
Fortune doubles down:
"It's leaving colleges no choice but to lower their expectations."
Here's another choice: maintain (or raise) your entrance requirements and your expectations, and simply do not accept applicants who cannot even read a sentence. Professors have lamented that critical thinking is no longer a valid issue, which makes sense when you're dealing with folks who struggle and usually fail to find the period at the end of any given sentence.
Then Fortune triples down:
"With students struggling, academies have been forced to adapt---a move critics describe as 'coddling'."
Of course when they cannot read a sentence asking them to read a few dozen pages is like asking them climb Everest without a Sherpa, which is nearly as difficult as going half an hour without a screen. But folks, including some of the non-reading Gen Z cohort are suggesting that college is not for everyone, and they are self-identifying as not college candidates. It is worth noting that college administrators seem to disagree, perhaps because their jobs depend on the myth that your life is worthless without a college degree. A degree that is increasingly not worth the cost and approaching objective, absolute worthlessness.
Is it ego? Is it greed? Is it self-interest over all else? All of these? Why would anyone, Fortune magazine or the academies, not recognize the vast number of young Americans who are not college-ready, and that lowering standards to well below high-school levels is exactly the wrong thing to do?
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