{"id":925,"date":"2026-06-07T18:12:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T18:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=925"},"modified":"2026-06-07T18:12:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T18:12:32","slug":"gen-zers-are-arriving-to-college-unable-to-even-read-a-sentence-professors-warn-it-could-lead-to-a-generation-of-anxious-and-lonely-graduates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=925","title":{"rendered":"Gen Zers are arriving to college unable to even read a sentence\u2014professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One shocked professor has described young adults showing up to class, unable to read a single sentence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s not even an inability to critically think,\u201d Jessica Hooten Wilson, a professor of great books and humanities at Pepperdine University told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s an inability to read sentences.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Her observation reflects a broader trend: nearly half of all Americans did not read a single book in 2025, with the habit plunging some 40% over the last decade. And even with young people embracing BookTok, a TikTok subcommunity dedicated to books and literature, Gen Z\u2019s reading habits still lag behind all other generations. Americans aged 18 to 29 read on average just 5.8 books in 2025, according to YouGov.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I am tap dancing and having to read things aloud because there\u2019s no way that anyone read it the night before,\u201d Wilson admitted. \u201cEven when you read it in class with them, there\u2019s so much they can\u2019t process about the very words that are on the page.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students are struggling to read long passages<\/h2>\n

With students struggling, academics have been forced to adapt\u2014a move critics describe as \u201ccoddling.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her part, Wilson has turned to reading passages aloud together, discussing them line by line, or repeatedly returning to a single poem or text over the course of a semester\u2014in part so students can begin to develop the skills to read critically on their own and be prepared for their post-graduate career.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m not trying to lower my standards. I just have to have different pedagogical approaches to accomplish the same goal,\u201d Wilson said, adding that she\u2019s taught at five institutions during her over 20-year tenure, and more selective ones like Pepperdine tend to have better-prepared students.<\/p>\n

For Timothy O\u2019Malley, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, adapting to changes in student behavior hasn\u2019t been especially difficult. It\u2019s always his job to tailor classes to students needs, he argued. What\u2019s more, he said students showing up to class unprepared is nothing new.<\/p>\n

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Early in his career, O\u2019Malley typically assigned 25 to 40 pages of reading per class \u2014and students would either do it or admit they struggled.<\/p>\n

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\u201cToday, if you assign that amount of reading, they often don\u2019t know what to do,\u201d O\u2019Malley said\u2014noting that many students instead just lean on AI summaries and miss the point of assigned reading.<\/p>\n

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He traces part of the problem to earlier stages of education, where reading has been framed as a means to an end rather than a pleasure or habit. Years of standardized testing, he argued, have also trained students to scan for information rather than sit with complex texts.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019ve been formed in a kind of scanning approach to reading,\u201d he said\u2014useful for navigating news articles online, but far less effective for engaging with dense novels or philosophical works.<\/p>\n

Reading is on the decline\u2014and it could have wide-ranging impacts<\/h2>\n

One major issue among college students isn\u2019t hostility toward reading so much as a lack of confidence and stamina.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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When professors reduce anxiety around grades, students are often willing to give the reading list a go, according to Brad East, a theology professor at Abilene Christian University.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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In his course, he hasn\u2019t changed reading length or difficulty but rather adjusted assignments in light of generative AI to stimulate real critical thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t important to me to have stress-filled cumulative exams, nor do I particularly care about grade inflation,\u201d East told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cI want them to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The confidence issue is something that Brooke Vuckovic, a professor at Northwestern\u2019s Kellogg School of Management, has seen among business school students. Each term, about 40-50% of her students describe themselves as novice or reluctant readers, but once they are encouraged to begin reading, she said, the shift can be immediate.<\/p>\n

And despite Gen Z\u2019s shift away from reading, the habit remains popular among the ultra-wealthy. A 2025 JPMorgan survey of more than 100 billionaires found that reading ranks as the top habit that elite achievers have in common.<\/p>\n

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The consequences of declining literacy extend far beyond grades, classroom performance, or even future careers. Reading, Wilson said, is a way of seeing ideas from other people\u2019s eyes\u2014leading to increased empathy and feeling of community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think losing that polarization, anxiety, loneliness, a lack of friendship, all of these things happen when you don\u2019t have a society that reads together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more OpenAI readies \u2018superapp\u2019 pivot ahead of planned IPO, FT reports<\/a><\/p>\n

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A version of this story originally published on\u00a0<\/em>Fortune.com<\/em>\u00a0on January 9, 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

More on education:<\/h3>\n
    \n
  • The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the than their parents<\/li>\n
  • Despite a $500 million net worth, . He warns graduates: \u2018Your character will take you further than your resume\u2019<\/li>\n
  • celebrating AI, but the wave of hate hasn\u2019t stopped them from using it to cheat on their exams\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    With Gen Z students struggling to read, academics have been forced to adapt\u2014a move critics describe as \u201ccoddling\u201d the next generation of workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"yoast_head":"\nGen Zers are arriving to college unable to even read a sentence\u2014professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=925\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gen Zers are arriving to college unable to even read a sentence\u2014professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates - 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