Why Are College Professors Hooked on the “Students Can’t Read” Myth?
Stop it! Stop saying (or implying) that college students are illiterate![1]
This tall tale[2] is being retold by another college instructor, and because it’s soooo slanderous and soooo shocking, the Chronicle of Higher Education loves it.[3] As recently seen in the Chronicle, rhetoric and writing instructor Tyler Jagt (University System of Georgia (USG)) claims that none of his college students can read.
In fact, reading is so bad Jagt calls it a “generational collapse.” Here’s his proof:
Six weeks into the term, I assigned my rhetoric and writing students a 20-page article. It was the same length I had assigned for five years and the same length I had read without complaint as an undergraduate a decade ago. Not one student finished it.
When I asked why, a student answered honestly: It was too long, and she kept losing track of what the paper was about. This was not a remedial class: These were students who had cleared the admissions process and written essays good enough to get them here. Yet a routine academic reading assignment had defeated them.[4]
Plot Holes in the College Reading Crisis
Before accepting this story as doctrine for nearly 19M college students, there’s some plot holes to discuss:
- What happened in the first six weeks of the term? If these students “can’t read,” then surely Jagt witnessed this well beyond a single 20-page article.
- What happened after the academic “defeat”? Did everyone flunk? Drop the class? Or did they eventually succeed in some way, shape, or form?[5]
- How many students were enrolled in the class? Is it 5, 10, 50, 250? Are these pandemic level numbers?
- What’s this 20-page article about? Is it engaging or boring? Just because students “won’t” read a boring article doesn’t mean they “can’t” read the article.
- How are other USG students fairing? If, as Jagt says, “there is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing,” then it must be happening in every USG classroom … every business class, criminal justice class, data science class, technology class, leadership class, math class, leadership class, nursing class, etc.
The answers are important because the media uses storytelling — often incomplete and cherrypicked — to establish broad truths.[6] Jagt’s story notwithstanding, there are plenty of counter-stories that “prove” something different. For example, here’s my story:
My 22-year-old son (a recent college graduate) is currently reading Moss Harts’ “Act One” (464 pages), and in high school, my college-bound daughter was required to read (cover-to-cover) Jacqueline Harpman’s “I Who Have Never Known Men” (208 pages). Thus, college students can read.[7]
And another story:
I work at a university, and at this university, there’s a class called “Science and the Imagination.” Unlike Jagt’s class, the students in “Science and the Imagination” can read.[8] I know this because they have to read:
• Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” (272 pages)
• Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” (249 pages)
• Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Shadow” (384 pages)
• Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End” (224 pages)
• Michael Crichton’s “The Andromeda Strain” (304 pages)
• Harry Harrison’s “Make Room! Make Room!” (233 pages)
• Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness” (304 pages)
• Stanislaw Lem’s “Solaris” (224 pages)
• Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” (287 pages)
• Jules Verne’s “Amazing Journeys” (678 pages)
• H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” (138 pages)
Meet a Generation That Loves Reading
To be fair, Jagt offers more evidence than just his one anecdote:
In February 2024, Adam Kotsko, who teaches in the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College, wrote in Slate that students who once handled 30 pages of reading per class meeting now seem “intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding.”
Nicholaus Gutierrez, an assistant professor at Wellesley [College], told The Chronicle that the baseline for what students consider a reasonable amount of work has dropped so noticeably that he has cut his readings accordingly; a 750-word essay now strikes many students as long.
At Stevens [Institute of Technology], the science and technology studies associate professor Theresa MacPhail described following the mantra of “meet your students where they are” for so long that she has begun to feel “like a cruise director organizing games of shuffleboard.”
That’s three more anecdotes, along with this:
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s 2024 investigation found the same pattern across institutions as different as the Stevens Institute of Technology and Wellesley College, where the average SAT exceeds 1400.
According to the Chronicle’s investigation:
A lot of what professors have been reporting[9] in the past year or so is that students simply aren’t doing the reading for class, but it’s not a matter of them say, being lazy and just not feeling like they were doing the reading. It was, I think, two things…generally speaking, it was a lack of reading endurance, meaning that anything over five pages was just too much for them.
So depending on who’s telling the story, college students can’t read 750 words … 5 pages … 10 pages … 20 pages … it’s all too much for them. Of course, the Chronicle makes no effort to offset or test these stories. So I’ll do it for them:
Gen Z … reads more than any other generation. 83% of US adults aged 18–29 say they regularly read, compared with three-quarters of people aged 30–49. (World Economic Forum)
In North America, an estimated 57 to 61 per cent of Gen Z and millennials identify as readers, averaging 3.5 to 4.5 books per year, with a preference for physical books. Younger readers are also more likely to purchase books in a bookstore and be active library users, which is notable in an era dominated by digital media. (The Conversation)
Compared to Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers, Gen Z readers are embracing more of every genre, including more Fantasy & Sci-fi (42% vs. 30%), Horror (38% vs. 20%), and Superhero/Action (34% vs. 18%). Gen Z also reads more romance compared to other generations, at 43% vs 30%. Unsurprisingly, Gen Z also loves YA, with 50% enjoying the category, compared to only 15% of other generations. (Wattpad)
Young adults and adolescents — folks born between 1997 and 2012 — are really into reading. Real books, the kind you find on paper. (The Week)
Americans are used to hearing about the nation’s reading crisis. … There is no reading crisis in the U.S. But there are major discrepancies between how the federal government and states define reading proficiency. (National Education Policy Center)
[M]uch of the commonly accepted wisdom about the academic performance of United States students is false. The best evidence we have on the reading crisis indicates that no crisis exists on average in United States reading. (Reading Rockets)
Millennials and Gen Z are making big moves toward the Bible. Millennials jumped an unprecedented 16 points, reaching 50 percent — half now say they read the Bible weekly. Gen Z mirrors this pattern, rising from 30 percent to 49 percent in just one year. (Barna)
Every Generation Mourns the Non-Reader
Jagt then goes on to diagnose the “why” behind his classroom of non-readers:
Why is this happening? One reason, of course, is smartphones. … Another reason for the decline in student reading capability is increasing reliance on generative AI. … There is a final factor that is contributing to this decline in reading skills, and that is that the students arriving in my classroom today are the first cohort to have experienced Common Core-influenced reading instruction across the entirety of their K–12 schooling.
Or could it be something different?[10] Could it be less about technology and more about perpetual pessimism? I ask because people have been complaining about student literacy for a long, long time … long before smartphones fell into fashion:
Beginning in the mid-1970s these [“college-bound”] students have been entering college so badly prepared that they have performed far below potential, often to the point of functional disability. We tend to assume that with their high aptitude for learning, they should be able to fend for themselves. However, the experience of the past fifteen years has proved decisively that they can’t. — The Atlantic (1991)
Let’s imagine the extreme, but nonetheless all too common, scenario: You walk into an introductory history lecture and gaze at a sea of strangers. The announcement that your exams will be essay format is greeted by combinations of soft groans, muffled shrieks of horror, and a stampede heading for the Add/Drop table. Nor does the announcement come easily for you. Experience has taught you to expect that most of the writing will be mediocre, a substantial amount of it dreadful, and some of it illiterate. If you’re lucky, a few exams will be brilliant. Come grading time, you will seek respite from your toil in the faculty lounge, where your colleagues will agree that college-level writing isn’t what it used to be. — Robert E. Weir (1993)
Only the minority of high-achieving students can enter into a conversation about intellectual issues or write a competent paper about those issues. To me this means that the idea of democratic education is something of a joke. — Professor Gerald Graff (2003)
Based on 2005 ACT-tested high school graduates, it appears that only about half of our nation’s ACT-tested high school students are ready for college-level reading. — ACT (2005)
The average literacy of college educated Americans declined significantly from 1992 to 2003 … just 25 percent of college graduates — and only 31 percent of those with at least some graduate studies — scored high enough on the tests to be deemed “proficient” from a literacy standpoint, which the government defines as “using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.” — Inside Higher Ed (2005)
“I want students to do the reading!” This is a familiar complaint heard from faculty members, and it is also a problem nationally in higher education. There are a variety of reasons why students fail to complete reading assignments. Some of them are cultural, some are institutionally fostered, and some are even a result of instructional practices by the very faculty members who are complaining. — Temple University (2005)
Twenty percent of U.S. college students completing four-year degrees — and 30 percent of students earning two-year degrees — have only basic quantitative literacy skills, meaning they are unable to estimate if their car has enough gasoline to get to the next gas station or calculate the total cost of ordering office supplies. — American Institutes for Research (2006)
According to a study conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education, there exists a “perception gap” between high school teachers’ and college professors’ assessments of their students’ writing skills. The study found that six percent of professors at the college level view their students as very well prepared writers, compared with 36 percent of high school teachers. The Chronicle’s study also revealed that 44 percent of university faculty members say their students are not ready for college-level writing. — The Tufts Daily (2008)
Back in September 2008, some 3 million people in the United States became college freshmen — the largest cohort ever. But the weeks before school started brought a setback. The students took a placement test, and many found that they probably wouldn’t be able to handle the work to come. If they were to enroll in a regular calculus or freshman composition course, chances are they would fail. They had graduated from high school, but they didn’t have the knowledge and skills to tackle readings, tests, and papers at the next level. — Mark Bauerlein (2008)
To his credit, Jagt accounts for this. He says:
Every generation of professors has complained that their students cannot read. The lament is usually overblown, but data have caught up to anecdote, and what I am seeing in my classroom is no longer a hunch.
I’m not sure why Jagt’s “generation of professors”[11] is any more true (or any less overblown) than past generations. Past generations offered plenty of data (see above) for things seen in the classroom. Jagt also has data, but his data is far from perfect. To prove his “hunch,” Jagt cites this statistic as a condemnation of Gen Z reading:
The 2024 NAEP results released in September 2025 show 12th-grade reading scores at the lowest level recorded since the assessment began in 1992. Thirty-two percent of 12th graders now score below NAEP Basic in reading, meaning that, in the assessment’s own language, they likely “cannot draw general conclusions based on concepts presented explicitly in a text.” And yet more than half of these same seniors reported being accepted to a four-year college.
However, in reporting on the 2024 NAEP, Jagt neglects to mention this:[12]
Sixty-eight percent of twelfth-grade students performed at or above the NAEP Basic level in 2024, while a larger percentage of higher-performing twelfth-graders (those who scored at or above the 75th percentile) reported having been accepted to a four-year college.
According to this data, Jagt’s classroom should have some combination of low-performing, basic, and high-performing readers. Yet somehow, his class — with 100% illiteracy — defies these numbers.
The Benevolence Beneath the Blame
My rant notwithstanding, I think Jagt wants to help his students become better readers. He says:
The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow. … If we want literate citizens, we will have to rebuild the conditions for literacy deliberately, against the grain of every incentive currently pointed the other way. I know the academy has the will to do that. It also has the obligation.
But if Jagt’s ultimate goal is to improve reading, why isn’t the article titled:
Rebuilding the conditions for literacy
And why isn’t the first story one of his success stories:
I do what I can in my own classroom to address the problems. I break 20-page articles into two halves and assign the first half with explicit analytical tasks. I require exploratory writing before formal drafts. I model (visibly, on the board) how to track an argument across pages or distinguish a source’s claim from my own analysis. I make structured peer review explicit, because the workshop format I used to take for granted now collapses into “this is good” and “maybe add more details” the moment I step back.
In my opinion, ulterior motives undermine Jagt’s benevolent ideals. These ulterior motives are to perpetuate a Gen Z stereotype and to capture attention through shock and awe. At first blush, this article has nothing to do with benevolence. Instead, the title and the first 100 words are there to simply convict, not support, college students.
[1] Granted, Jagt never uses the word “illiterate” (only the word “literate” (four times)), but there’s no denying his implication of “illiteracy.” According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization:
an illiterate person [is] someone who can not, with understanding, both read and write a short, simple statement on his or her everyday life. A person who can only read but not write, or can write but not read is considered to be illiterate
This is implied from the git-go when Jagt’s title asserts, “My students can’t read.”
[2] I’m not saying reading isn’t an issue. The problem is in the way the story is being framed. Jagt unequivocally says, “My students can’t read,” which, as written, implies “absolute” (the complete inability to read or write any words or sentences) and/or “functional” (reading and writing skills that are inadequate to manage daily living) illiteracy. Other professors have made similar “blanket” statements:
- Gen Z students are so unprepared for college that ‘coddling’ profs have started reading aloud to them (New York Post)
- Gen Z students unable to read a sentence, Pepperdine professor says (The College Fix)
- College Professors Warn Of A Literacy Crisis As More Gen Z Students Struggle With Reading (Essence)
- Gen Z Arriving at College Unable to Read (Futurism)
- Professors say Gen Z students can’t read, forcing colleges to lower academic standards (Campus Reform)
- Is Reading Over for Gen Z Students? (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Based on a handful of professors, the media is portraying a whole generation — 70 million Gen Z Americans — as illiterate. Of course, some will defend this as hyperbole,* but that’s my point; it’s embellished, it’s misleading, and it’s harmful because readers believe (and spread) word-for-word what is written.
* Context, of course, is king when it comes to hyperbole. If my wife was to laughingly tell friends “Travis can’t drive,” they’d understand me to be a bad driver (I am) but not a non-driver. But when an educator says that his or her classroom “can’t read” and does so in the media, this becomes a serious accusation, one that implies full-blown illiteracy.
[3] Jagt’s story is a well-loved story, repeatedly cited as proof that college students can’t read:
Jagt is not alone in sounding the alarm on students’ lack of reading skills and attention spans today. As The College Fix has previously reported, some college students struggle to read even a handful of sentences. Some Ivy League students can’t finish an entire book. In fact, some students do not have enough of an attention span to finish a movie anymore. — The College Fix
Today an article was released sharing the experience of Professor Tyler Jagt. This semester he assigned his students in a rhetorical analysis class to read a 20 page paper. This was a regular assignment, something he has asked his students to complete for several years. And guess what happened … — Allison Sycamore Maynard
I’m not well positioned to comment on undergraduate students’ reading and writing skills (as I teach at the graduate level), except that I commonly hear from faculty what Jagt describes as an evergreen complaint in higher ed: students aren’t reading. It’s not just that they aren’t reading — they are, in some cases, responding to reading assignments as if they are absurd. — Kevin R. McClure
[4] In a strange twist, Jagt contradicts himself later in the article. His opening anecdote portrays a classroom of 100% poor readers, a story that’s meant to prove this:
[W]hat I am seeing in my classroom is no longer a hunch. There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing.
However, later in the article, he says this:
I see this stratification in the classroom and on the page every week. My students from districts* that protected sustained reading through small class sizes, strict phone policies, and faculty who refused to teach to the test all arrive with their attention relatively intact. My students from districts that surrendered to devices and standardized testing arrive cognitively winded.
So in one class, he’s seeing illiteracy at 100%, but at the same time, he sees (“every week”) students “with their attention relatively intact.” This contradiction raises a question: If there are college students who still have their “attention relatively intact,” why is this fact buried 1300 words into the article?
* How does Jagt know which students are “from districts that protected sustained reading through small class sizes, strict phone policies, and faculty who refused to teach to the test” and which students are “from districts that surrendered to devices and standardized testing”? Does he poll his students? Does he have access to their personal information? Does he know the teaching/phone policies of every Georgia school district? What is his data to prove this, or is it just a “hunch”?
[5] Apparently, this academic defeat can be successfully overcome. Jagt says:
I do what I can in my own classroom to address the problems. I break 20-page articles into two halves and assign the first half with explicit analytical tasks. I require exploratory writing before formal drafts.
This, however, goes unmentioned in the opening story.
[6] Some will point out that Jagt’s article is listed as “opinion,” which then frees the Chronicle from all responsibility. I’d buy this IF the Chronicle wasn’t fiercly negative about an industry it’s supposed to champion and IF the Chronicle was balanced (and fair) in its portrayal of students.
[7] Are my kids voracious readers? Definitely not, but they still read and write. In college, my son received a grant to compose an original song cycle featuring 14 performances, and my daughter is currently writing a screenplay in her free time. This isn’t a brag; it’s a point … that many young people (despite the narrow narrative) still read well and write well.
[8] Some will immediately argue that one college literature class proves nothing about the current state of generational literacy. They’d be right … of course, this logic applies equally to Jagt’s one rhetoric and writing class.
[9] Aside from higher education, there are few (if any) industries where the employees publicly bash the customers, where the people getting paid slander the people who pay them, where a substantial investment (time and money) might bring condemnation from your investment.
In an earlier draft, I asked the question, “Should any of this be a fireable offense?” (tenure notwithstanding). I backed away because I’d never want someone to lose their job. That said, higher ed is a strange industry because some professors use the media to degrade their paying customers (or the industry as a whole). In this sense, students aren’t consumers; they’re foils who pay (i.e., tuition) to be the butt of an academic joke. Consider this “low-brow” description from professor Bryan Caplan, author of “The Case against Education”:
One could protest that for every disgruntled learner who cuts class, there’s an enthusiastic student sucking the marrow out of college. Wishful thinking … The harsh reality, then, is that most students suffer in school. Nostalgics who paint their education as an intellectual feast are either liars or outliers. Once they submit their final exams … the vast majority of students rush back to their low-brow comfort zone.
Now consider Caplan’s description in another context, another industry, where customer service can make or break you:
One could protest that for every disgruntled Ford driver, there’s an enthusiastic Ford driver sucking the marrow out of the road. Wishful thinking … The harsh reality, then, is that most drivers suffer in a Ford. Nostalgics who paint their Fords as a driving feast are either liars or outliers. Once they park their Fords … the vast majority of drivers rush back to their low-brow driving zone.
If this was published by a Ford employee, that employee’s job might be in jeopardy.
[10] Jagt cites the NAEP to show reading data but ignores their findings on absenteeism, which is another “why” (besides technology) for illiteracy. According to the NAEP:
In 2024, the percentage of lower-performing twelfth-grade students (those scoring below the 25th percentile) who reported missing 3 or more days of school in the past month (37 percent) was larger than the percentage of higher-performing students (those scoring at or above the 75th percentile) who reported missing 3 or more days (25 percent). … Compared to their lower-performing peers, larger percentages of higher-performing students reported missing no days (31 percent) or one or two days (44 percent) of school in the past month.
[11] I need to be careful here. Not all college professors are negative. There are thousands of great professors who see their students as competent, smart, and able. However, these great professors (and their stories) are rarely published. Their stories don’t bleed, so they never lead. Instead, it’s the doomsdayers who receive the media spotlight, the professors who offer the most salacious sound bites. To prove my point:
This salacious headline from Fortune can be read only 1 way:
Gen Z — an entire generation — can’t read 1 sentence … not 3 words, not 10 words, not 12 words.
It’s so ridiculous it’s laughable. Still, Fortune prints it because a college professor — Pepperdine’s Jessica Hooten Wilson — says it’s true:
“It’s not even an inability to critically think,” Jessica Hooten Wilson, a professor of great books and humanities at Pepperdine University told Fortune. “It’s an inability to read sentences.”
Which, in a bit of bizarre writing from Fortune, is quickly contradicted by another professor:
The confidence issue is something that Brooke Vuckovic, a professor at Northwestern’s 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.
So according to Professor Wilson, college students can’t read sentences, but according to Professor Vuckovic, college students can read with encouragement. In light of this, Fortune, using Vuckovic’s quote (instead of Wilson’s), could’ve titled the article:
Gen Z are arriving to college as reluctant readers — professor says encouragement could lead to a generation of improved literacy
[12] Also omitted is the NAEP’s finding that “student interest in and enjoyment of reading” has INCREASED over the last 5 years:
In 2024, twenty-six percent of twelfth-graders reported having a high level of interest and enjoyment in reading, which was 1 percentage point higher than in 2019 (25 percent). Compared to 2019, a higher percentage of students (28 percent) reported a moderate level of interest/enjoyment and a lower percentage of students (45 percent) reported a low level of interest/enjoyment in 2024.
