In the past, college was not a place where people felt entitled to be comfortable. It was consciously uncomfortable, with cinderblock dorm rooms, mediocre cafeteria food, and strenuous courses from uncompromising faculty. Young people went to college to grow up—and, by and large, they did. They decorated their rooms with second-hand throw pillows and dollar-store strings of lights. They muscled through cafeteria meals till they could move off campus and cook for themselves. They stepped up to classroom challenges. But more than that, they learned to interact with groups of people they had not encountered before. They learned to deal with differing perspectives about the fundamental things in life, and they learned how to live alongside—and even befriend—the very people who disagreed with them. College students in 2019 are not learning those skills.
Based on the reports from across the
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