Stop Meeting Students Where They Are

Over the past several years, a common refrain in education has been that educators need to “meet students where they are.” Equally common is the promise to do just that—and we’re hearing it more and more in North Carolina.

The idea of “meeting students where they are” is most commonly invoked in non-academic contexts. For example:

• DeVetta Holman Nash, assistant director of student wellness services and coordinator of student academic success at UNC, proclaims, “I meet students where they are individually.”
• UNC Charlotte touts a new “all-pathways [‘collegiate recovery’] program model to meet students where they are.”
• After partnering with Amazon’s Career Choice Program in 2022, UNCG chancellor Franklin Gilliam, Jr., declared, “With this exciting partnership, we are transforming the way we provide coursework to meet students where they are.”

But the injunction to “meet students where they are” isn’t limited to these particular dimensions of the current college experience. We see it invoked in other, more academic contexts, as well:

• App State senior writer Jessica Stump notes that “App State Online programs supported by Project Kitty Hawk are designed to meet students where they are, offering technology, flexibility and support that work with their busy schedules.”
• Reporter Hannah Vinueza McClellan, writing for EdNC, quotes Dr. Matt Bergman, who says that, in community colleges, “Efforts [to support adult learning] must be driven by ‘the noble purpose’ of meeting students where they are.”
• UNC’s Writing Center promises, “Coaches meet students where they are and help them move forward in the process.”
• Melissa Bostrom and Hugh Crumley, assistant deans in the Duke Graduate School, suggest “7 Strategies for Professional Development in the Pandemic Age,” designed to “Meet Students Where They Are, Virtually.”
• Wake Forest is currently embracing AI as a way to “better customize learning experiences and meet students where they are in their learning journey,” in the words of Prof. Shannon McKeen.

These kinds of broad institutional initiatives invariably work their way down into divisions, departments, and classrooms. Unsurprisingly, the imperative to “meet students where they are”—whether or not the instruction is formulated in that way—is now increasingly found in course syllabi and instructors’ assignments.

It’s seldom clear what exactly it means, in practical terms, to “meet students where they are.” It’s seldom clear what exactly it means, in practical terms, to “meet students where they are”—particularly in the classroom—though the phrase is often invoked in conversations about “student success,” which are themselves typically linked to broader DEI goals and ideologically progressive pedagogical theories. To the extent that it is clear, following the dictate almost invariably involves expecting less and less from students and more and more from teachers. This is especially problematic (to reclaim a term) because where students are, academically, is quite simply not where they should be.

Following the dictate almost invariably involves expecting less and less from students and more and more from teachers. For years now, statistics and studies have shown that, while high-school graduates nationwide tend to be confident that they are academically prepared for college, very few actually are. Only 30 percent of 2025 high-school graduates nationwide met a minimum of three of the four benchmarks measuring college readiness in English, math, reading, and science. That percentage was even lower in North Carolina, where only one in four (25 percent) of high-school graduates met a minimum of three out of the four benchmarks.

Only 54 percent of Tar Heel State 11th-graders who took the ACT this year earned a composite score of 17 or above (out of 36), according to myFutureNC. Not all of these students will go on to pursue a college degree, of course, but that score clears the bar for a student with a mediocre high-school GPA to be considered for admission to a school in the UNC System. Even then, it is “associated with [only] a roughly 50% chance of associate or bachelor’s degree completion within six years of enrolling in college.”

Matriculating freshmen are arriving on college campuses

• Unable to read lengthy texts—and unable to comprehend texts of virtually any length;
• Unable to write clearly—and often unable to write correctly on a technical level, lacking knowledge of basic grammar and mechanics;
• Lacking what used to be and should still be basic general knowledge—particularly regarding (American) history and civics;
• Unwilling to devote more than a minimal amount of time and effort to studying.

The idea that we can meet these students “where they are” while also teaching college-level subject matter requires an untenable level of cognitive dissonance. It also inevitably leads—as it must—to less rigorous curricula, lowered academic standards, and grade inflation.

It’s difficult to measure these things in objective, quantifiable ways—not least of all, perhaps, because there is little to no incentive for academic departments, divisions, or institutions to even attempt to do so. But there is more than merely anecdotal evidence that these things are occurring.

In a recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Seton Hall professor Mark Horowitz noted “the results of a national survey of faculty my colleagues and I published in 2023,” indicating that “pluralities of professors (close to half) in large public universities affirm that academic standards have declined in recent years and that grade inflation is a serious problem.” Moreover, “almost 40 percent acknowledge routinely inflating grades; one-third admit to reducing the difficulty of their courses.” And “a third of professors in our survey admit to watering down their courses in recent years.”

Colleges are succumbing to the same failure that has resulted in a loss of trust in virtually all of our cultural and political institutions. By resigning themselves to “meeting students where they are,” our institutions of higher learning are succumbing to the same failure that has resulted in a loss of trust in virtually all of our cultural and political institutions. As Yuval Levin has observed, “What we’ve seen in the last several decades is a transformation in our expectations of institutions. So that we think of them less as [ensuring integrity] and more as giving people platforms.” This is essentially what is happening in our colleges and universities now. We no longer expect students to conform themselves to the ethos of the academy—not, at least, to the academy as it has been. Instead, the academy is conforming itself to the expectations and assumptions of ill-prepared students, transforming college into a “platform” for activism and networking.

The academy is conforming itself to the expectations and assumptions of ill-prepared students, transforming college into a “platform” for activism and networking. To be fair, our failure to adequately prepare high-school graduates for the rigors of higher learning has put our colleges and universities in a somewhat untenable position. The problems that Horowitz identifies are, he glumly intones, “likely intractable under current market and cultural conditions. […] In this fiscal context, it is hardly surprising that appeals to high academic standards take a back seat (or perhaps no seat at all) to concerns over student enrollment and retention.” Under such circumstances, actually maintaining the high academic standards that one should expect from an institution of honest-to-God higher education very well might, all things being equal, lead to a collapse of the system. Overwhelmed students would likely withdraw from too-challenging courses, and many of those who didn’t would fail, resulting in low GPAs and a lack of satisfactory progress toward a degree. Applicant pools could easily dry up as it became apparent that the chances of successfully completing degree programs were decreasing. Enrollment rates would crater—as would the income necessary to maintain operations.

But the current status quo isn’t sustainable, either.

It is undoubtedly true that our K-12 schools must do a better job of preparing students to meet the challenges of higher education, should they choose to pursue it. It is also true, however, that colleges and universities must start expecting and demanding more of our students. And students, for their part, must take ownership of their education and responsibility for their success (or failure).

This will take time. The crisis we are currently in has been decades in the making. The solution likely will be, too.

It will also take resolve. We must be prepared to see significant decreases in student GPAs and pass rates—and corollary reductions in graduation and matriculation rates. That is, we must be willing to allow the higher-education bubble to shrink. The alternative is to eventually see it burst. Because the truth is that, while college can and perhaps even should (in theory) be for anyone, it simply isn’t, in fact, for everyone, as so many have been saying for so long. By pretending otherwise, the academy has found itself in the position of desperately trying to “meet students where they are”—and chasing them further and further down in the process.

David C. Phillips is an English teacher who lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.