College was once treated as the last serious checkpoint before the real world, a demanding environment meant to sharpen thinking, discipline, and professional readiness. Somewhere between admission letters
and graduation caps, that role appears to be changing.
As Gen Z students enter universities with learning gaps and shorter attention spans, institutions are responding not by raising the bar, but by reshaping it. According to the New York Post, institutions across the US are redesigning curricula to make college more accessible and manageable. They are introducing easier courses under the name of inclusion, blurring the line between support and lowered standards.
A Generation Admitted, But Not Fully Prepared
Universities are grappling with a growing disconnect between admission standards and student readiness. Former professors have also reported that more students are arriving on campus struggling with skills once assumed to be prerequisites, including sustained reading, math skills and basic writing structure.
Colleges in the US are increasingly introducing easier and slower-paced courses, some for full credit to accommodate students who are technically admitted but academically underprepared.
These changes are often framed as inclusive teaching practices meant to support diverse learners. Critics have also argued that they amount to lowering standards rather than raising students to meet them.
The trend of introducing these courses is not confined to lesser-known universities, but public universities, private liberal arts colleges and even Ivy League schools have started offering courses that would have once been considered supplementary or remedial, not something central to a college education.
The Rise Of “One Big Book” Courses
One of the most cited examples is the emergence of “One Big Book” courses in English departments. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a flagship public university, students can enrol in a three-credit course titled “One Big Book That’s Worth It.”
This course helps guide students through a single long novel over an entire semester, which emphasises slow and careful reading. The course description itself underscores the shift in expectations.
Given concerns about shorter attention spans among today’s generation, students are reassured that reading one complete book is worth the time and effort, and that the assigned text will be inexpensive and meaningful enough to keep.
Similar courses exist at Fordham University, Smith College, Suffolk University and the University of Pennsylvania, where the focus is on a single work such as Moby-Dick or Richard III.
Finishing a novel in a few weeks was considered standard practice. At institutions like Columbia University, the core curriculum still demands up to 150 pages of reading per week. However, in an era defined by smartphones, AI, short-term content, and shorter attention spans, colleges are increasingly recognising the completion of a single long book as a notable academic achievement.
Supporters of these introduced courses say that these will help rebuild close reading skills eroded by digital habits. Critics argue that they signal how expectations have fallen, and how these courses are reshaping the academic expectations and intellectual rigour.
Attention Spans, Technology and Academic Drift
One of the important things to think about amid the newly introduced courses is the ‘ability to focus.’ Faculty members in the New York Post repeatedly cited the diminished attention spans, difficulty engaging with complex arguments and resistance to sustained intellectual effort.
Many attribute this to the pandemic, which not only disrupted high school education but also left many students behind without consistent academic discipline. Former Duke professor Stuart Rojstaczer, a longtime critic of grade inflation, has argued that colleges have always accommodated a range of student seriousness.
But he suggests the balance has shifted. According to him, only a fraction of students fully engage with rigorous academic work, while a growing segment does the bare minimum and still graduates.
What has changed is the institutional response to student diversity.
Rather than reinforcing expectations, universities have started repackaging the coursework to meet students where they are, even if they fall short of college-level norms.
Remedial Education Takes It Up A Notch
Many think that the expansion of remedial-style courses is evidence of lowered standards, even at some of the most elite institutions. Harvard University made headlines for introducing Math MA, a course which offers “extra support” in foundational algebra, quantitative reasoning and geometry. This is at a university with an acceptance rate hovering around 4%.
Other colleges have followed suit. Fairleigh Dickinson University offers a 4-credit course titled “Fundamentals of Writing,” designed to teach standard English conventions and basic literacy skills. The University of Nevada provides preparatory Composition for students still struggling with sentence structure, grammar and paragraph development.
Critics have also questioned how students lacking these skills were admitted in the first place. If applicants cannot write essays or basic sentences, the concern is not merely academic but institutional, which also points out that the admissions priorities may value diversity metrics and tuition revenue over preparedness.
Credits For Catch Up
Some universities have eliminated remedial courses altogether, not because they need them, but because the need has become overwhelming. The University of California system abolished non-credit remedial classes in 2018.
The City University of New York followed a similar path. When it phased out remedial courses in 2023, the data revealed that nearly 78% of new associate degree students had required remediation when reforms began in 2016. Remedial education had become the norm rather than the exception.
Critics argue that these policies effectively redefine college-level work downward, granting degrees that mask foundational deficiencies. What was once catch-up work is now transcript-worthy achievement.
What Data Says
The recent data paints a stark image and raises concerns about declining preparedness. A recent study from the University of California, San Diego, found a 30-fold increase over five years in the number of students unable to perform basic arithmetic. Faculty across disciplines report spending more time on skills remediation and less on advanced learning concepts.
Steven Mintz, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, has warned that colleges have started admitting students with weak preparation while simultaneously cutting academic support systems. According to Mintz, institutions are dismantling tutoring programs, reducing advising, and increasing class sizes, all while softening academic expectations.
“Lowering standards without helping students meet them is a mistake,” Mintz told the New York Post. He emphasised that remedial education itself is not the problem. The real danger, he argued, lies in universities’ unwillingness to be honest about what college-level work demands and their reluctance to invest in the structures that help students succeed.
Is It Really Inclusion?
Universities often justify these changes under the banner of inclusion. Students come from varied educational backgrounds, work part-time jobs, face economic pressures and navigate mental health challenges. By lowering expectations across the board, institutions may inadvertently harm the very students they seek to support, sending them into the workforce with degrees that do not reflect real competence.
There is a growing concern about long-term consequences. Many employers reported dissatisfaction with graduates’ writing, analytical thinking, and problem-solving skills. If colleges continue to soften standards, the value of a degree itself may erode.
Historically, colleges were meant to stretch students to their intellectual limits, which can challenge assumptions, demand discipline and help students understand the sensitivity of meeting deadlines. Hand-holding was never the goal; growth through struggle was. The shift is not that students cannot handle rigour, but that institutions have decided it is easier not to ask.
As colleges are rebranding accommodation as innovation, the line between support and surrender grows thinner. Whether this experiment will make college more accessible remains unclear, but the critics warn that the foundational step will leave the students unprepared for the real world.
