"Many students are simply refusing to do *anything*." | Hacker News Reader

"Many students are simply refusing to do anything."

bsky.app

22 pointsdougb510 comments

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.

Maybe colleges shouldn't have accepted these kids in the first place or shouldn't move them along. But I think the author is raising a different alarm -- the number of kids who "do nothing, want nothing, and try nothing" seems to have spiked significantly. Public schools, at least, have a mandate to care about this.

I think the problem of student motivation is much broader than this author's college; I've heard it echoed by so many professors lately, but never as poignantly.

Instead of teaching them to drive the car you’re telling them they need to learn to wipe a horses ass faster.

Let your students use AI, unleash them and their true potential into this new world.

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.

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.

Just give them an F and expel them ASAP. Choices should come with consequences or choices do not matter.

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.

> There are some serious problems in our society.

I do not believe fixing social upbringing and elementary study skills is the function of university professors teaching under-graduate/graduate courses. If needed, the university can start a separately funded "Basic Foundational Skills" course for that, but it should really NOT be the job of the professors teaching their respective domains to handle this.

If a student does not have the basic skills or discipline necessary to handle an undergraduate class, they should not waste their time or the professor's time. Let them go so that someone qualified can take that spot.

In other words, college has become mostly just transactional.

A degree is mostly just bought, not earned.

Who promoted this trend?

Please don't turn HN into yet another link aggregator that just serves as a curated frontend for Twitter and Twitter-like platforms.

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