Professors say Gen Z students can’t read, forcing colleges to lower academic standards

Professors at Pepperdine and Notre Dame say many college students can no longer read or process assigned texts, increasingly relying on scanning habits and artificial intelligence to get by. - Patrick McDonald '26 

A new survey and grade data from schools like Harvard suggest AI dependence, shrinking attention spans, and grade inflation are eroding academic standards and the value of degrees.

• College students are increasingly unprepared for serious study, with some professors recently reporting they are illiterate, raising significant questions about the overall quality of American education.
• “It’s not even an inability to critically think,” Jessica Hooten Wilson, a Pepperdine University professor, told Fortune. “It’s an inability to read sentences.”...