Gen Z students are arriving on college campuses with weaker reading habits than previous generations, and professors are being forced to adjust expectations in response. In some classrooms, instructors say students struggle not just with long assignments, but with reading and processing even a single sentence.
Jessica Hooten Wilson, a professor of great books and humanities at Pepperdine University, said the problem goes beyond critical analysis. “It’s not even an inability to critically think,” she told Fortune. “It’s an inability to read sentences.”
Reading levels are falling across age groups
Wilson’s classroom experience reflects a broader decline in reading. Nearly half of Americans did not read a single book in 2025, and the habit has dropped by about 40% over the past decade.
Gen Z has not escaped that trend. Even with BookTok helping keep books visible on social media, Americans ages 18 to 29 read an average of just 5.8 books in 2025, according to YouGov.
Wilson said many students need text broken down in ways that would have been unnecessary in the past. “I feel like I am tap dancing and having to read things aloud because there’s no way that anyone read it the night before,” she said.
Professors are changing how they teach
Some instructors are responding by slowing down and restructuring class time. Wilson now reads passages aloud with students, discusses them line by line, and revisits the same poem or text several times during a semester.
She said the goal is not to reduce standards, but to use a different method to reach the same academic outcome. Wilson also noted that students at more selective schools often arrive better prepared, while less selective institutions tend to see greater gaps in reading ability.
Timothy O’Malley, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, said adapting to student needs has always been part of teaching. He also said unprepared students are not new, but their struggle looks different now.
Earlier in his career, he assigned 25 to 40 pages of reading and expected students to either complete it or say they had trouble. Now, he said, many students do not know how to approach that amount of reading and may instead rely on AI summaries that strip away the purpose of the assignment.
The problem is not only ability, but stamina and confidence
Educators say many students are not necessarily hostile to reading. Instead, they often lack confidence and the stamina needed to work through dense material.
Brad East, a theology professor at Abilene Christian University, said students are more willing to tackle reading when anxiety around grades is reduced. He has kept reading demands the same but adjusted assignments to push genuine critical thinking in an age shaped by generative AI.
“I want them to learn,” East told Fortune, while saying he does not prioritize stress-heavy exams or grade inflation.
Brooke Vuckovic of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management has seen the same hesitation in business students. She said about 40% to 50% of her students each term describe themselves as novice or reluctant readers, but many become more engaged once they start reading.
Why the decline matters beyond college
Experts say the issue reaches far beyond academic performance. Reading has long been tied to empathy, shared understanding, and community, and Wilson warned that a society that reads less may also feel more isolated.
She said the loss of reading culture can contribute to polarization, anxiety, loneliness, and weakened friendship. That concern stands in contrast to the habits of the ultrawealthy, where reading remains common; a 2025 J.P. Morgan survey of more than 100 billionaires found it was the top habit shared by elite achievers.
As colleges adjust to students who arrive with less reading practice, the larger question is how much of the skill can be rebuilt inside the classroom. For many professors, the challenge is now less about assigning more pages and more about teaching students how to stay with a text long enough to understand it.
Read more at: fortune.com