Near the beginning of every semester, Sarah Z. Johnson has her students make her a promise: If they think about dropping the class, they will meet with her first, demonstrating how colleges and professors can adapt to changing student needs.

While many of the students roll their eyes, “it may save at least one student a year,” says Johnson, who is a writing instructor and head of the writing center at Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin.

In recent years, Johnson, along with many other professors, has noticed that students struggle more than ever with the jump from high school to college. They don’t know how to ask for help, struggle to complete homework and rarely participate in class.

Recent National Assessment of Educational Progress reading scores dipped to the lowest they’ve ever been, falling two points on average for fourth and eighth graders. While math scores have stayed relatively the same since 2022, the last time the test was administered, they’ve yet to hit what they were in 2019.

Some of that can be attributed to the pandemic and the loss of foundational academic and social skills during online learning. But experts say that as colleges admit increasingly diverse classes of students, their needs have changed in ways that colleges aren’t prepared for.

How Colleges Can Adapt to Support Students New to the ‘Game of School’

With new technologies and opportunities for help outside the classroom, like private tutoring or AI, wealthier students are often better equipped than their peers to enter college. As more low income and first generation students enroll, this gap has only widened. Rather than lower standards, experts say, colleges need to prepare for a new type of student — one who may not have time to complete every reading or attend every study session, but is still valuable and deserving of a quality education.

Johnson has also found that students have a difficult time asking for help in class, which is why she encourages them to consult her before considering dropping out. She says that many students, especially if they’re the first in their family to attend college, don’t know what a writing center is and even if they do, they believe getting help is a sign of failure.

Read the full article about how colleges can support students by Maggie Hicks at EdSurge.