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.
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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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
This might be a dumb question, but how did they get into college?
It looks like they can read, they're just not understanding what the concepts are. I think it's like having face blindness or ADHD, you try to work around it, with some being more successful at it than others.
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.
and they’re been reared
Was this article written by a Gen Z author?
Nice reading comprehension.
What if the real gen z was the me
How many coke bottles did you accidentally?
Everyone in the education system, at every level, is incentivized to inflate grades and pass more students.
When I was in university too many kids started failing the intro classes so they had to add additional mandatory intro classes that used to be covered at high school.
Government don't want to pay teachers, teachers don't want to get called out for failing kids who were under-equipped for their class, so they pass them, then the next year teacher has to do the same, or they look bad. The government adds standardized tests, which become the target, because that what will make the schools look bad. Then the colleges/universities want higher enrolment for more money. They don't care what happens after kids graduate.
I think the answer is standardized testing needs to become more holistic, universities need to do entrance testing instead of relying on standardized tests, teachers need to get funded so they can teach kids instead of spending all their time dealing with a few problem students, and we need to let kids fail and re-introduce "streaming" teaching where smart kids can get into classes with smart kids, and unmotivated kids can get put into classes that refocus their learning and fix their fundamentals.
we need to let kids fail and re-introduce “streaming” teaching where smart kids can get into classes with smart kids
They've been doing "stream" since I was in school and it made me a worse person. I was pigeonholed into the remedial classes with no way out. No pleading would do it. I was never given target grades to reach to get out. And that was just when I was trying to get into the average classes. At one point, I tried bypassing the and testing into Honors/AP. I was told I failed, but recently, I learned by accident that I passed those tests, but was lied to. The guidance counselor who leaked that to me was surprised I wasn't happy about that and refused to say it was wrong. By the end, they were just telling me that the better classes were full, so I told them I would drop out 3 months from graduation and try again the next year. They thought I was bluffing.
Remedial classes do not focus on fixing anything. They're just dumping grounds for undesirable students. The students are en mass, are unmotivated and bully anyone down that think doesn't belong. I literately heard "What do you expect? We're remedial students" from one of my classmates one time. The teacher just dropped her head.
You want to fix things? Start holding students back. Throw out the participation awards the boomers forced on everyone. Don't just pipeline everyone into community colleges. Or make an actual High School track available in community college. My state supposedly has one, but they make it hard as hell to get any info on it.
and we need to let kids fail and re-introduce “streaming” teaching where smart kids can get into classes with smart kids, and unmotivated kids can get put into classes that refocus their learning and fix their fundamentals.
You might be interested to learn that "gifted" classes were introduced as a reaction to integration of black students and students with disabilities. It was always about keeping privileged kids away from the rabble and has little to do with student performance or ability.
I'm actually quite angry to learn that, do you happen to have a source that backs that up?
We had streaming in Canada, where there was never segregation. It was to allow teachers to focus on a more advanced level for those who could handle it. It allowed teachers to also focus on basics more with groups that needed it. It was all about capabilities, not skin color. Yes, people with mental handicaps didn't get in the advanced streams. But do you want your future doctor or scientists to have been educated at the lowest common denominator, or as best as possible?
same here in late 2000s, and this was in a community college, a large amount of people struggle in remedial math, as well as english, english i can understand because they almost never teach grammar/writing in k-12, but MATH.
as long as the college gets their money...
participation grades, and they waived the SATS during covid. also LOTS of money.
If it was anything like me 20ish years ago, the check cleared...
Some states have rules in place that if you graduate from a high school in that state, you're automatically given acceptance into a state college.
Also, as someone who took a couple gap years and managed to completely forget Algebra II and Calculus, you can enter college and take remedial courses to (re)educate yourself. That said, I don't know how that would work with something as fundamental as basic reading skills.
CALIFORNIA started doing this because the state unsi suffered from years of low enrollment due to covid, and pre-covid they had to this to survive. the reason behind it was mostly very low-job prospects for most majors, at least for the school i went to. they had to raise tuition and rent prices for (apartments they owned that are for students), and the students are so incensed they tell thier friends, or younger siblings to not attend the school or even go to college. also thier high propensity to transfer to a better 4 year from state uni because the current school sucks ass in career enrichment;development. also the lack of "volunteer experience for stem too which is extremely problematic and only if somehow found how to get into a PI lab". and the faculty interviewed in these school, blamed it on LOW birth rates,yea no thats the least of the problems.
there are people struggling in remedial classes too, in my cc people have taken 2-3 times for remedial and the verge of being blocked from taking the same class in the cc more then 3rd time. 3rd time requires approval by the school to even take.
some school has pre-calculus, pre-chemistry test before you even register for a higher level class. if you dont pass you cant get into these courses.
If you need an actual example story on how something like this can happen.
you know the old stuff where teachers are like, you need to do math manually, youll never always have a calculator in your pocket (of course in retrospect its almost the opposite given smartphones). this particular case was TOO accommodating, and allowed her to use text to speech services to do work, so she never learned how to "read"
“All I see is words everywhere,” Ortiz said.
Umm, yes?
Incredible. Small thing, but I was surprised to read “Connecticut.”
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.
yea that too, or when a parent realizes too late and starts being a helicopter parent during school hours that doesnt help either. while in the last year in HS, a students MOM came to monitor the son during school hours, and made a snobby comment about our parents not caring, i was thinking bitch you waited too long to save your son from a "college-less" career which he was already set in doing, the time was freshman or before he entered hs.
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.
in HS no, some students refuse to do them anymore so the TEACHERS give up, even the tough ones. this was back early 2000s, so its been ongoing for 20+years,.
A lot of teachers don't assign students homework. Why would they, when students don't even do the work assigned to them during class?
i can corroborate that, in 2000s one math teacher i overhead said they dont give hw to students, because nobody does them.
i regularly encounter students who have to look at their phone to see what their home address is
GOP wants a paralyzingly stupid populace of plebs who lack the awareness to realize how they're actually being completely fucked over by the people whom they've been (easily) convinced are their saviors. add to this the fact that the fascists have spent decades demonizing experts in every field as "woke," "fraud," "fake news," whatever--because expert opinion so often contradicts the party dogma.
so yea. there's no mystery behind an entire generation of morons. in other words oblivious slaves at best, happily willing slaves at worst
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 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?
Ah. AMERICAN gen-z.
Please tell me it's not so bad for countries with school systems.
This is a US thing, elsewhere this generation capable of reading.
Yeah our education system is shitty by design. If you have to be an idiot to believe in our system of government then the solution is simple. More idiots.
thats why they need cannon fodder for the military, but they end up gutting it so much they cant even get into military, and i heard the basic positions they had to lower it for some of the services.
Funny, I first read this article 35 years ago.. it was just about another generation ba k then.
I guess colleges don’t look at SAT scores anymore before admitting students? Can’t pass something like the SAT if you can’t read.
The SAT test is optional at most colleges now.
“ While the increased prevalence of test-optional policies started with the pandemic, many institutions, including some of the most selective colleges, have extended or even made these policies permanent. However, a range of prominent public universities and tech schools, particularly in the South, have been requiring tests again for a couple of years now, and for the 2025-2026 cycle, over half the Ivy League will once again be requiring all applicants to submit a test score”
having too many students fail out of your "bougie" university makes a bad look on your reputation as a university, and alumini, also potential in the extreme could affect accreditation. or employers will start to identify and dismiss cv/resume from problematic universities.
I guess scamming potential students out of large sums of money is more important these days.
Good thing we killed the DOE.
they were pretty powerless before.
Jesus Christ