College Matters from The Chronicle Are the Kids Alright? We Asked Ian Bogost.
Apr 8, 2026
Ian Bogost, professor and media commentator, reflects on teaching Gen Z and higher-education culture. He tackles who to blame for student behavior and how economic and technological changes reshape expectations. He discusses students' aversion to ambiguity, the effects of constant grade dashboards, and how online life and institutional pressures change identity and risk-taking.
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Broken Promise Of College Opportunity
- College's promise of guaranteed opportunity has frayed, changing student investment in exploration and risk-taking.
- Ian Bogost argues students no longer assume college yields a stable career foothold, so they treat coursework transactionally to protect outcomes.
Students Resented Open Ended Assignments
- Bogost recalls assigning open-ended, surprise-driven projects that students initially hated but later appreciated.
- He taught this way at Georgia Tech and observed resistance even 15–20 years ago from mid-late millennial cohorts.
Courseware Made Students Optimize For The Dashboard
- Courseware and grade dashboards normalized constant performance tracking and encouraged strategic, metric-driven student behavior.
- Bogost notes students began to optimize to the machine view, asking "what the system wants" rather than immersing in the course.