At an average university, the average student is 'functionally illiterate'

The average college student is "functionally illiterate," writes "Hilarius Bookbinder," who teaches philosophy at a public university that attracts students with mid-range academic records.

Most students "could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read," nor do they have "the desire to try, the vocabulary to grasp what they read and most certainly not the attention span to finish," writes Bookbinder. They don't read textbooks or primary texts, "even in upper-divisions courses that students supposedly take out of genuine interest."

Students write at the eighth-grade level, he writes. They submit the cheapest cliché as novel insight.

Exam question: Describe the attitude of Dostoevsky’s Underground Man towards acting in one’s own self-interest, and how this is connected to his concerns about free will. Are his views self-contradictory?

Student: With the UGM its all about our journey in life, not the destination. He beleives we need to take time to enjoy the little things becuase life is short and you never gonna know what happens. Sometimes he contradicts himself cause sometimes you say one thing but then you think something else later. It’s all relative.

The alternative is a coherent answer written by a bot.

The average student goes to college to qualify for a middle-class job, he writes. That's not new. But, these days, professors are seeing "a stunning level of disconnection."

Students are much more likely to skip days or weeks of class without explanation, the professor writes. If they show up, they walk out in the middle of a 50-minute class to look at their phones, to which they are addicted. Or they pretend to type notes on laptops while looking at social media. Or gambling.

Students expect faculty to do the work for them, he writes. "No, you can’t have my slides. Get the notes from a classmate. Read the book. Come to office hours for a conversation if you are still confused after the preceding steps. . . .Try coming to class."

Students miss quizzes, then can't be bothered to show up for a make-up or talk to the professor about it.

It's a societal problem, Bookbinder concludes. As a tenured full professor, Bookbinder could keep standards high and fail lots of students, but the dean will complain. "Plus, if we flunk out half the student body and drive the university into bankruptcy, all we’re doing is depriving the good students of an education."

I was a very good student at a very good suburban high school in the late '60s. I took Philosophy my senior year, taught by a college professor. Some of the reading overlapped with my Great Books course taught by the wonderful Miss Anderson and sometimes with "Politics of Change," designed by a social studies teacher, Mr. Miller. (A ninth grader who snuck into the class while he was supposed to be in study hall ended up as a philosophy professor.) I also took AP English. All four classes were taught at the college level and required lots of reading. Which we did. It was so much fun.

Why take philosophy if you don't care about thinking and learning, and you're not willing to do the work? Take a business class. (Too much math?) Why spend the time and money and energy to go to college?

Only 20 percent of high school students in the Class of 2024 who took the ACT were prepared to pass entry-level college courses requiring reading, writing, math and science skills. Thirty percent met benchmarks in three out of four subjects.