College students DON'T read
They have one job and they're not doing it
In May, Kitten published a post which went wildly viral on substack and beyond, entitled College English majors can't read.
In it, Kitten discusses a recently published (2024) research article, They Don’t Read Very Well: A Study of the Reading Comprehension Skills of English Majors at Two Midwestern Universities, by Susan Carlson, Ananda Jayawardhana, and Diane Miniel. In this study, a group of College English majors took a standardized reading comprehension test—on which they received a High School level score—and then were asked to decipher a passage from Bleak House by Dickens, a task on which they also demonstrated disappointing performance levels:
58% of students understood very little of the passages they read
38% could understand about half of the sentences
5% could understand all seven paragraphs
The authors of the research article come to the following conclusion: “if we teachers in the university ignore our students’ actual reading levels, we run the risk of passing out diplomas to students who have not mastered reading complex texts and who, as a result, might find that their literacy skills prevent them from achieving their professional goals and personal dreams” (p. 16).
Kitty however is more critical, coming to a more fatalistic conclusion. They argue that more than simply being a question of Professors requiring better awareness of students’ literacy skills and providing more support, this critical lack of reading competency is in fact the result of “standards having fallen to an almost satirical level.”
But is this in fact the case? Is it the University/College system and its standards that are the issue? Or is this issue more surface level? ie. could students make meaningful improvements simply with additional support?
We’re not going to come any kind of definitive conclusion today (and frankly, there needs to be more robust research in order to make any kind of claim in either direction); however, one aspect of this issue that has been researched and which is proven to make a difference in students’ success is whether they read at all.
That’s right. The issue might be equally or more so that they don’t read, not that they can’t (or at least these factors are mutually causal).
In a research article entitled Reading to Learn or Learning to Read? Engaging College Students in Course Readings by Mary Margaret Kerr and Kristen M. Frese (2017), the researchers find that only about 20%-30% of undergraduate students actually complete assigned course readings. And other studies corroborate this: for example, Connor-Greene (2000) found that 72% of students reported rarely or never completing course readings.
The significance of this low engagement with reading is not to be underestimated.
Studies show that when students do not read academic work regularly through completing course readings, they achieve lower marks on assessments, demonstrate inferior research performance, are less involved in class discussions and therefore learn and retain less information, and most significantly (you guessed it!) demonstrate lower overall reading and writing ability (St Clair-Thompson, Graham, & Sara Marsham, 2018).
When students do not continually expose themselves to complex academic reading and practice working through these pieces, students who initially entered University with reasonably good reading skills end up stagnating, while those who entered with already poor reading skills never reach an adequate reading level, and simply continue to struggle more and more with every passing year, often never achieving expected levels of understanding.
Clearly then, one step in addressing the issue of poor reading comprehension among students is to find ways to encourage them to read more, and support them in this process.
Through a review of existing literature on the topic, Kerr and Frese (2017) identify four central reasons why students tend to demonstrate low engagement with reading:
Unpreparedness: Students coming from High School have not been taught how to complete University level readings effectively, which is then compounded by the fact that students might have a lower reading level than Professors anticipate.
Lack of motivation: Students are not adequately motivated to complete readings, because they’re uninteresting, not directly co-related to grades, or don’t seem sufficiently relevant to the course content.
Time constraints: With over half of College students in the US working jobs outside of their already demanding class schedules, many do not have sufficient time to complete all readings, or at least not to read in depth.
Underestimation of reading importance: Many students judge completing readings as a nice-to-have but not as essential.
After identifying these factors, the researchers’ argument is that these are most certainly not insurmountable hurdles. Having worked in a University for years, I would also agree. But they do require changes at both the professorial level and the systemic level.
What can Professors do?
Be more mindful of the level of the readings they assign, especially for first year/freshman classes. If students are already coming in with a lower-than-expected reading level, assigning them a reading wildly above what is even expected will simply demotivate them further. And trust me, I’ve seen this happen far too many times. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen first year students be assigned readings that are at a third year level.
Assign fewer readings. Most Professors love their niche area of interest, without taking into account that for most students, their course is one of maybe 5 others which they are taking for the purpose of determining their interests. Assigning students 6 readings each week because for the Professor these are ‘highly influential and interesting pieces’ frankly isn’t productive. I find that it’s better to assign fewer readings, but have the students actually do them.
Put measures in place to motivate students to do course readings (Kerr and Frese, 2017). This can include allotting participation grades for class discussions about readings, having weekly mini quizzes on the readings, or doing mandatory online discussion groups about the readings before class.
And what can Universities/Colleges do?
Provide students with far more reading support, especially early on in their academic careers. Generally, Universities provide support for incoming students mostly through bridging programs and extracurricular, voluntary programming; however, such programming should be much more available, and to all students. This could include introductory courses on academic reading skills and other essential skills for University success, or reading groups for motivation.
Provide support for Professors as they design their courses. As many of us know who have been to University or College, just because someone is a great researcher does not mean that they are a good teacher. Many Professors do not have a background in curriculum or course design, and the psychology of learning. Universities should provide their faculty with more resources around this, so that they can better implement some of these changes in their courses.
Consider making structural changes, such as requiring students to take fewer courses or more easily elongate their University degree so as to be able to spend more time on tasks that generally fall to the bottom of their to-do list, such as completing course readings.
While such changes will not magically solve the issue of poor reading comprehension among students, they do demonstrate that this is not simply an issue of “standards having fallen”: it’s also an issue of providing students with necessary reading support.
Now, now, before I end off this article, I can hear some of y’all who were in the comments of Kitten’s article disagreeing with me, and saying “sure, but all this doesn’t change the fact that the standards at Universities are still too lax and should be addressed.”
Frankly, we must acknowledge that this is a vague argument. How exactly would ‘standards’ be increased? What standards exactly? And through what measurements and at what stage of students’ University degrees would changes take place? Entry exams? GPA averages? When passing and failing students in each course? This would need to be made more clear in order to have a fulsome discussion.
That said, here are some general points to consider against the “standards are just too low” argument:
Universities are already highly exclusionary places, with those who are marginalized (on a variety of intersections) being far less represented in these spaces on average. It was only relatively recently that women and non-white folks even entered the University space in the US, Canada, and Europe, and still Universities in these countries (and most others) operate as highly Eurocentric spaces (Maher & Thompson Tetreault, 2007). Standardized tests and grading systems exacerbate issues of exclusion, as they privilege those who a) can afford to pay for test prep support b) are in a stable enough socioeconomic position to not need to work during school c) are from a non-minority background (for a variety of reasons) (Amrein-Beardsley et al., 2025). So, do we really want to render already exclusionary spaces even more exclusionary by ‘raising standards’? And again, what does this mean practically? Is there a way to raise standards while avoiding further privileging already privileged groups? I’m not sure, but most of the ways through which historically this has been done (testing and grading) don’t seem very promising in this regard.
Whether we want to admit to it or not, Universities are businesses. They are capitalist institutions that need to make money, even if they are partially public. And with Colleges and Universities in the US, Canada, and Europe experiencing decreases in funding right now, they are in even more need of cash. If we start to ‘lower standards’ and exclude students from attending or graduating, how do we propose that these institutions make money and continue to function? And if we say that ‘investments’ is the answer, where would these come from? Do we really want to keep institutions running on oil and weaponry money?
We—for good or for bad—live in a world that is higher-education centric. Education beyond High School is considered necessary for future professional success. While this is perhaps starting to shift slightly, still a change in standards would have to be accompanied by a shift in the University-centric culture. Otherwise, we could have a professionalism crisis on our hands.
So, there we have it. I fear raising standards is not the answer; however encouraging students to actually read is a part of it.
To this end, I released an e-book a month back entitled How to Read Journal Articles like a Pro: A Guide and Worksheet for Students. The e-book emerged from years within the University, as a students and now as a researcher and educator, and includes an outline of all of my best tips for academic reading, and a worksheet I created which students can use to guide them through reading journal articles. My goal with this e-book is to provide students with support for their reading, regardless of their institution and ability to access its programming. If you are a student or know one for whom this would be useful, you can learn more about the e-book and purchase it through my shop.
If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for reading! I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well.
And if you liked this, you’ll likely enjoy my other articles as well. Here is another one I wrote recently:
*Please note, this is the last research deep dive that will be published on a Sunday. Move forward, all deep dives will be published on Fridays, and I will be publishing an additional article recommendation post each week on a surprise day. For more info on the changes I’m making on my content, please click here.
References
Amrein-Beardsley, A., Azizova, Z. T., Gibbs, N. P., Ikegwuonu, Kim, J., La Torre, D. M., Lavery, M. R., Pivovarova, M., & Zheng, Y. (2025). A validation review of the SAT and ACT for college and university admissions decisions. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 33.
Kerr, M. M., & Frese, K. M. (2016). Reading to learn or learning to read? Engaging college students in course readings. College Teaching, 65(1), 28–31.
St Clair-Thompson, H., Graham, A., & Marsham, S. (2017). Exploring the reading practices of undergraduate students. Education Inquiry, 9(3), 284–298.