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College professors are sounding the alarm about an unexpected crisis in higher education. Students are arriving on campus unable to complete basic reading assignments that were once standard expectations. The shift has forced educators to fundamentally rethink how they teach, sparking debates about academic standards and student preparation.
Jessica Hooten Wilson, a humanities professor at Pepperdine University, has witnessed the problem firsthand. “It’s not even an inability to critically think,” she explained to Fortune. “It’s an inability to read sentences.” Her experience reflects a troubling pattern emerging across American colleges as traditional literacy skills appear to be eroding among incoming students.
The numbers tell a stark story. Nearly half of all Americans didn’t read a single book in 2025, representing a 40% decline over the past decade. Gen Z lags behind every other generation despite the popularity of BookTok. Americans aged 18 to 29 read just 5.8 books annually, according to YouGov data.
Professors Adapt as Reading Skills Decline
Wilson has transformed her teaching approach entirely. “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 admitted. She now reads passages with students, discusses texts line by line, and revisits single poems throughout entire semesters to build critical reading skills.
Other professors report similar adjustments. Timothy O’Malley, a theology professor at Notre Dame, once assigned 25 to 40 pages per class. “Today, if you assign that amount of reading, they often don’t know what to do,” he noted. Many students now rely on AI summaries instead, completely missing the purpose of the assigned reading.
O’Malley traces the problem to earlier education stages. Years of standardized testing have trained students to scan for information rather than engage deeply with complex texts. “They’ve been formed in a kind of scanning approach to reading,” he explained—a skill useful for online articles but ineffective for dense philosophical works.
The Confidence Crisis Behind the Reading Gap
The core issue isn’t necessarily hostility toward reading but rather a lack of confidence and stamina. Brad East, a theology professor at Abilene Christian University, finds that reducing grade-related anxiety helps students engage with reading lists. He’s adjusted assignments to combat AI reliance while maintaining reading difficulty and length.
“It isn’t important to me to have stress-filled cumulative exams, nor do I particularly care about grade inflation,” East told Fortune. “I want them to learn.” His approach prioritizes genuine critical thinking over performance metrics, creating space for students to develop reading skills without overwhelming pressure.
Brooke Vuckovic at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management sees similar patterns. Each term, 40-50% of her business students describe themselves as novice or reluctant readers. However, once encouraged to begin, the transformation can be immediate, suggesting the barrier is psychological rather than purely skill-based.
The Stakes Extend Beyond the Classroom
Reading remains a habit of the ultra-successful. A JPMorgan survey of over 100 billionaires found that reading ranks as the top shared practice among elite achievers. This disconnect between declining literacy among young people and reading’s correlation with achievement raises questions about future opportunity gaps.
The consequences reach far beyond academic performance or career prospects. Wilson argues that reading cultivates empathy by allowing people to see through others’ eyes. It builds community and shared understanding—skills increasingly rare in fragmented digital landscapes where scanning replaces deep engagement.
“I think losing that polarization, anxiety, loneliness, a lack of friendship, all of these things happen when you don’t have a society that reads together,” Wilson warned. As Gen Z enters adulthood with diminished reading habits, educators worry the effects will ripple through an entire generation’s social and emotional wellbeing.