Gen Zers are arriving to college unable to even read a sentence—professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates

As Gen Z ditch books at record levels, students are arriving to classrooms unable to complete assigned reading on par with previous expectations. It’s leaving colleges no choice but to lower their expectations. One shocked professor has described young adults showing up to class, unable to read a single sentence. “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.” Her observation reflects a broader trend: nearly half of all Americans did not read a single book in 2025, with the habit plunging some 40% over the last decade. And even with young people embracing BookTok, a TikTok subcommunity dedicated to books and literature, Gen Z’s reading habits still lag behind all other generations. Americans aged 18 to 29 read on average just 5.8 books in 2025, according to YouGov. “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,” Wilson admitted. “Even when you read it in class with them, there’s so much they can’t process about the very words that are on the page.” Students are struggling to read long passages With students struggling, academics have been forced to adapt—a move critics describe as “coddling.” For her part, Wilson has turned to reading passages aloud together, discussing them line by line, or repeatedly returning to a single poem or text over the course of a semester—in part so students can begin to develop the skills to read critically on their own and be prepared for their post-graduate career. “I’m not trying to lower my standards. I just have to have different pedagogical approaches to accomplish the same goal,” Wilson said, adding that she’s taught at five institutions during her over 20-year tenure, and more selective ones like Pepperdine tend to have better-prepared students. For Timothy O’Malley, a theology