"Many students are simply refusing to do *anything*."

I am not so sure that the schools necessarily should make it their problem. Sure, compulsory primary schools should try pretty damn hard to drag pupils along. However, once one gets to the tertiary level of education, one should (1) have the academic credentials/prerequisites needed for the chosen program of study (otherwise the admission process has failed or the grades have been inflated/made up) and (2) desire to learn.

Of course, be a good human and reach out a helping hand to those that seem to struggle but, if you have students who truly do nothing, want nothing and try nothing then just move on? If they fail in their first semester then they are not there the second.

In other words, college has become mostly just transactional.

A degree is mostly just bought, not earned.

Who promoted this trend?

Maybe that university should rework their admissions criteria. They clearly let in people that are unable to attended university at all, and probably left out people that were capable of doing what’s necessary.

I’m from a different country and from a different generation, but the university admission tests did test my capabilities of reading written text and comprehend it.

Complained about this yesterday as well: https://duti.dev/blog/2025/rot-of-undergrad/

The incentives are all messed up & universities can't even do anything about it since if they lose students by being more strict, their stats look worse.

Coming from a student, it's disheartening to see seemingly nobody even remotely interested in the subject. Nobody to talk to about interesting research, to work together on projects with, etc. I'd present something quite interesting (e.g. https://duti.dev/randoms/wip-location-services/ on the massive amounts of analytics being sent off by iPhones) and their eyes would just glaze over and say something like "nerd" or "put the fries in the bag".

I'm sure this is not the case for all universities though. I was lucky enough to intern at the University of Cambridge over the summer & it was really cool working with the PHD students there. They were all highly motivated & actively working on research.

And what do we do after an entire generation matures without developing skills or knowledge, and takes over our politics and economies?

Education and excess authority do not mix. Public universities are right for wanting to meet kids where they are... and then bring them to where they should be. That's how education works. We can save the elitist crap for elitist universities; the working man still needs an education, and a student body who lacks accountability and vision, or is just creatively blind, must be led to open their eyes willingly. A real mentor embodies this philosophy.

I came from an awful, abusive upbringing. Both of my parents were drug addicts and often homeless. I finished out my last two years of high school while homeless. I have extreme ADHD, for which at the time I lacked enough healthy coping mechanisms. Despite consistently having the highest test grades, my general performance suffered greatly and achieving a high GPA was extraordinarily difficult for me.

There are some serious problems in our society. We will not fix these problems by sticking our heads in the sand and being hard-asses, instead of connecting with the youth and teaching them the importance of taking things seriously.