Outside the Beltway

Ten Observations About College Students

These sweet, anxious, thoughtful, and genuinely loveable students know in their bones that their future is deeply uncertain and shaped by adults who appear to have no idea what they’re doing.

Michael Bailey · Friday, May 30, 2025 · 10 comments

Immediately after classes ended this semester, I jotted down some thoughts about my college students. I recognize there’s a sample selection issue here—students at my small private Southern college aren’t necessarily representative of the nation’s college population. Still, I also have three daughters who recently graduated from college and I’ve met some of their friends from across the country. So, take these impressions for what they’re worth—one person’s observations and reflections. I’ve been teaching for over twenty-five years, and I no doubt carry the predictable biases of someone in my station of life. 

1. They’ve never been sweeter—and they’ve never been more screwed up.

What’s striking is how openly, even proudly, they own both facts.

The students at my college do fit some small-town Southern stereotypes—they’re deferential (sometimes excessively so), polite, and conflict-averse. They’re sensitive—almost absurdly so—about being called out. They don’t argue back in class, and they very rarely—far too rarely—challenge the material or the instructor’s views in their assignments. Their aversion to confrontation extends beyond the classroom. I often ask students who work in the service industry which age group is the most demanding and rude. The answer is always the same: older people (presumably far older than me). I believe them.

Their sensitivity seems connected to their sweetness. An anecdote: A couple of years ago, I observed a job candidate give a teaching demonstration in front of about twenty students. I thought he was terrific—funny, engaged, knowledgeable, and genuinely trying to connect with these kids. There was a lot of active-learning in his presentation. But the students disliked him. Why? At one point, when they were being a bit chatty, he said, in a light and clearly self-aware tone, “Now now children, let’s focus.” I thought it was playful. They felt wounded.

They’re also proud of not being racist, sexist, or any other “-ist” they associate with older generations—including my own. They view their generation as more decent, more attuned to harms inflicted (intentional or not), and freer of bias. Of course, they have their own blind spots, but the general self-assessment isn’t far off.

They’re equally proud of how openly they discuss mental health—especially their own. Many students identify with their diagnoses—whether clinical or self-labeled—and some treat these labels as central to their identity. It’s nearly standard to see personal statements for law or graduate school reference mental health challenges—how they’ve overcome them and how these experiences (or what they might think of as conditions) have given them a unique lens on the world. One student called his diagnosis his “super-power.”  

This embrace of mental health language seems to me a mixed blessing. I’m old-fashioned enough to not entirely understand it, and I confess I wish they didn’t cling to the labels quite so tightly. My fear is they may inadvertently limit themselves or find excuses for falling short of their potential. Still, I recognize it’s perfectly possible that real good may come from this way of understanding themselves.

Some of their struggles are quite real even if not rooted in more classic causes such as crushing poverty or racism. Suicide rates among young people have risen dramatically in recent decades, though I’ve been fortunate that none of my students have taken that path. But my sense—admittedly unquantifiable—is that nearly everything feels harder for them than it did for students twenty years ago: getting out of bed, showering, making it to class, finishing assignments.Their dating lives (and perhaps more generally the relationships between men and women) are a mess, and I’ve been struck by how openly contemptuous many women are of the men in their generation—perhaps with justification, though I’m not in a position to say for sure.

2. They don’t read. 

I think most of them can read—but they don’t, and they don’t quite feel that not reading is a choice. Their days are shaped by external pressures—work, family, sports, extracurriculars, the omnipresence of social media, and the burden of class attendance. For many, daily life is dictated by anxiety—like whether or not to get out of bed. They say they don’t have time to read, and I mostly believe them. Reading requires stillness, patience, and uninterrupted time—none of which aligns with their restless, FOMO-driven world.

3. They’re not deeply engaged in the classroom.

They dislike professor-led class discussion and often show contempt for the “comment guys”—those few, often socially awkward, students who regularly speak up. They prefer lectures, which let them half-engage, scroll through social media (whatever platforms they’re using these days), and sometimes even text about the professor—something I know because students occasionally snitch.

I have a no-technology policy, but I’m old, and managing lectures, deadlines, and learning names already maxes out my bandwidth. I don’t want to feel like I’m at war with my students. I tell myself that if they’re texting about me, at least they’re paying attention.

Great teachers—charismatic, high-energy ones—can still capture attention. I’ve just got to believe that. My own powers have probably diminished, and sometimes I don’t connect in the classroom. At times, lecturing feels lonely. A semi-related anecdote: I held a Zoom review session before an exam. Of over twenty students, not one turned on their camera. I stared into a screen filled with black boxes, trying to be lively. Classroom teaching is not that bleak, but sometimes it tiptoes in that direction.

That said, students are surprisingly eager to visit during office hours and share their struggles—so I don’t take their classroom silence as a personal rebuke.

Just maybe as a professional one.

4. They expect dispensations. 

Students rarely argue about grades—that would require confrontation—but they do expect exceptions and dispensations. I hear them complain about professors (which surely means they complain about me). They treat syllabus rules as negotiable. Essay instructions? Suggestions. Due dates? Starting points for negotiation. Professors who strictly enforce their syllabi are viewed not only as draconian but also vain, old-fashioned, and petty.

5. They’re clever—especially as curators of cleverness.

I can’t quantify this, but humor has become more central to our lives and society over time, perhaps as a function of rising affluence. Students are funny, and they appreciate humor. Critics like Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock say you can’t joke with college students anymore, but they misunderstand the medium. Humor now comes in the form of memes—hundreds a day—that touch every corner of life, often with remarkable insight and freaky specificity. The students’ worldview is dark, cynical, and fatalistic—but oddly light-hearted perhaps because fatalistic. They tend to laugh at rather than challenge the many indignities they perceive their lives as entailing.

6. They have a complicated relationship with their phones.

They’re perfectly aware of the connection between screen time and anxiety, and they feel conflicted. They don’t need another lecture on the matter.  They encounter more than enough adult scolds about their phones. They know their addiction (no other word suffices) isn’t healthy, but they don’t feel they chose this world. They’re nostalgic by proxy for the untethered life of earlier generations—but can’t really imagine life without their devices. They hate their dependency, even as they rationalize it with talk of the genuine benefits these tools offer.

7. They’re way into conspiracies.

I fielded more questions about conspiracy theories this year than ever before. When I would own up to the fact I’m not really a conspiracy guy, some students look visibly deflated. One of my sharpest students once emailed me a detailed critique after I joked about the government controlling the weather. He genuinely believed it could, and that the Biden administration might be vindictive enough to use that power. He’s respectful, devoutly Christian, and a top science student. The conspiracies lean a bit right, but not exclusively. It’s a conspiratorial generation.

8. Students and AI are besties.

They see AI as little different from using Google. My students are good kids—they don’t see themselves as cheaters. Several told me, quite candidly, that they use AI to help generate ideas and create outlines of the material generated by AI—but not actually to write the paper, please understand. 

AI is changing everything. Next semester, I’m switching to all in-class writing assignments. I can’t fully express how much this saddens me, but I’ll leave that for another time.

9. They kind of love Karl Marx.

My conservative-leaning Southern students were taken—almost giddily so—with Karl Marx this year. That wasn’t on my 2024–2025 academic bingo card. I teach modern political philosophy and do my best to present each thinker fairly. This year we read Machiavelli, Hobbes, Bastiat, Rousseau, and Marx.

This year, Marx lit them up.

They praised his genius, clarity, and insight. One student said she was “surprised in the best possible way.” Another was disturbed by how much sense Marx made—it gave him “existential unease.” These students aren’t leftists. But Marx’s core message—you are being royally screwed by people with money and power—hits home. Hard. Their response doesn’t line up neatly with either ideological wing.

If they ever channel their meme-making energy into direct action, we may be in for serious social unrest. I sometimes suspect that many students sort of half-want to just burn.it.all.down. There’s rage behind the humor.

10. Their “normal” is not our “normal.”

Most of my course material avoids President Trump, but sometimes he or his actions come up. I try to contextualize, saying something like, “This isn’t normal. This is a break from precedent. Whether that’s good or bad is up to you, but know that it’s a break.”

Late this spring, a bright sophomore came to my office to talk about life. Eventually, we got to our class on the presidency and congress. He fidgeted, paused, then said earnestly, “You talk about what’s normal. But for us, what we have now is normal. I was in fourth grade when Trump was elected. I don’t know anything else.”

He trailed off. I can only speculate what troubled him.

These sweet, anxious, thoughtful, and genuinely loveable students—these students who are overwhelmed by everything except academic reading—know in their bones that their future is deeply uncertain and increasingly shaped by adults who appear to have no idea what they’re doing.

My fear is that they may be right.