There is a peculiar kind of panic whispering through campuses and social feeds. Colleges that once focused on calculus and composition now advertise sessions titled Adulting 101 or Life Skills Lab. You scroll through the schedule and feel the odd tilt of history. The same institutions that train future engineers and historians are teaching students how to grocery shop and change a lightbulb. That image makes some people laugh and others bristle with embarrassment. I find it urgent and revealing.
Not a scandal but a symptom
To call this a scandal is to miss the point. Putting young people in a room to explain taxes is less about handholding and more about plugging a structural leak. For many of these students classes are not optional add ons. They are lifelines to routines most adults assume were universally taught at home or high school. The problem is not merely ignorance. It is a misalignment between what institutions prized and what daily life demands in 2026.
A different kind of literacy
We used to assume literacy split into reading and math. Now there is a practical literacy that matters at least as much. It contains booking medical appointments, reading a lease, interpreting a credit card offer, and cooking a meal that does not come prepackaged. Saying these skills are basic obscures their complexity. Each item is a knot of social norms financial rules and small technicalities. Students are not failing because they are incapable. They are failing because these skills were deprioritized by a system that prized test scores and college admissions over maintenance of ordinary life.
Listen to what researchers already notice
Kids are less independent; teens are less likely to have their driver s license or have a job when they re still in high school.
Jean M Twenge Professor of Psychology San Diego State University.
Jean Twenge s observation is blunt and anchored in long term data about generational change. This is not a moral verdict. It is a pattern that explains why campuses are now filling a role older systems once did.
Economy meets upbringing
One honest truth is economic friction. The cost of living and the housing squeeze mean more students remain financially tethered to family. That makes certain chores invisible. When you do not write rent checks you do not learn negotiation over utilities. When parents manage medical appointments you do not see insurance codes. Layer on disinvestment in vocational education and the result is predictable. But predictable does not mean immutable.
Courses that teach living are not a confession of weakness
There is a performative cruelty in the headlines that mock students for signing up. That cruelty serves older anxieties more than it diagnoses young people. Teaching how to cook a balanced week of meals or read a utility bill is practical pedagogy. It is also a rare site of humility in higher education. Schools are acknowledging that producing capable adults requires explicit training in everyday competence not just intellectual chops.
What these classes actually do
Observe a session and you see something like applied anthropology. Instructors break tasks into steps surface common misunderstandings and create controlled opportunities for practice. A budgeting exercise is not abstract. It simulates dealing with late fees and choosing between priorities. A cooking lab includes shopping for freezable meals that survive two exams. The learning is mundane and therefore durable. It is the kind of knowledge that slowly accrues value decades from now.
What I worry about
I worry about a cultural habit of outsourcing ordinary responsibility entirely to institutions. When the solution to not knowing how to change a tire is to buy more gadgets or hire more help we lose the chance to cultivate competence. That slow attrition of practical skill can produce brittle adults. But there is another worry. The spectacle of these classes feeds a narrative that Gen Z is uniquely helpless. That narrative makes for good headlines. It is rarely accurate in the small messy ways that matter.
Why some people insist on shame
Blaming an entire generation for gaps created by schooling economic policy and changing family structures is satisfying in a simple way. It allows people to close the loop with a moral ending. But life is not a morality play. The better stance is curiosity. Ask which mechanisms produced the gap. Ask what can be rebuilt. Courses are one answer. Policy is another. Families are a third. The blame frame prevents the collaboration these answers require.
A modest manifesto
Here is what I think should happen. Keep the courses. Improve them so they are rigorous in their mundanity. Do not make them a punchline. Integrate them into campus life in a way that respects students intelligence and context. Teach practical skills with the same seriousness that departments teach methods. Reward students for competence alongside academic achievement. The payoff is long term and invisible in semester gradebooks. It is the capacity to keep a life on track when systems are indifferent.
Open endings are allowed
I do not pretend this is a complete program. I am not offering a checklist of reforms. Some of the solutions require civic will that universities alone cannot supply. Some require parents and employers to adjust expectations. There will be messy trade offs. There will be pushback from those who see this as lowering standards. That pushback is predictable. It is also often a sign of discomfort more than principle.
How to read these changes without panic
First stop treating life skills like trivia. They are cumulative and often invisible until disaster. Second resist the approval seeking that equates visible competence with moral worth. Third treat institutional offerings not as favors but as public goods that fill a genuine gap. These are not heroic interventions. They are mundane repairs to a social infrastructure neglected for decades.
Final pulse
Yes this is uncomfortable to watch. Watching an inbox pile up or a fridge empty for days is a small sorrow repeated across millions of lives. The right response is not mockery. It is investment. Investment in curricular time in public policy in community norms. If teaching people how to live becomes common there will be losses too. There will be people who think adulthood should only be learned by trial by fire. Let them keep their rites. I prefer repair and skill and less avoidable chaos. That is not sentimental. It is practical. It is also quiet work that will have effects ten years from now when those students are not only surviving but running households and workplaces without the theatrics of perpetual crisis.
This debate will keep shifting. I will not pretend to have all the answers. What feels certain is this. Teaching how to live is not a failure. It is an adjustment to realities we all helped to make.
Summary
The table below synthesizes the main ideas and the practical implications of campuses teaching life skills.
| Problem | Why it matters | Practical implication |
|---|---|---|
| Decline in everyday independence | Creates gaps in household and financial competence | Integrate life skills into campus offerings and rewards |
| Economic and institutional shifts | Delay of responsibility and fewer hands on learning experiences | Use simulated scenarios and applied practice in courses |
| Public shaming narrative | Distracts from structural causes and reduces collaboration | Promote curiosity based approaches and policy discussion |
| Practical literacy undervalued | Results in brittle adult functioning under stress | Treat mundane skills as curriculum worth time and credit |
FAQ
Why are colleges teaching life skills now?
Colleges are responding to a visible demand and to gaps left by earlier stages of schooling and by family economic choices. Students arrive lacking certain routine competencies and institutions that care about student success offer structured training. These courses are pragmatic responses and also experiments in what higher education should prepare students for beyond abstract knowledge.
Does this mean Gen Z is helpless?
No. The moment conflates a lack of certain household habits with overall capability. Gen Z shows strengths in technical fluency creativity and social organizing. These life skill classes fill specific gaps not general incapacity. The narrative that frames an entire cohort as helpless is simplistic and often rooted in nostalgia rather than evidence.
Are these classes effective?
Effectiveness depends on design. Courses that include hands on practice realistic scenarios and follow up support produce better outcomes than one off lectures. When programs connect students to ongoing campus resources the likelihood of durable behavior change increases. Like any pedagogy practical repetition matters more than inspiration.
Should parents feel guilty?
Guilt is unproductive. Family contexts vary and many parents did what they could. Systemic factors like housing costs school priorities and labor market shifts play large roles. A constructive stance is to support learning opportunities and encourage age appropriate responsibility rather than dwell on blame.
Will this trend change how adulthood looks?
Possibly. If practical skills become normalized in education there may be less avoidable chaos and better preparedness. But adulthood is shaped by many forces. Courses are part of a broader ecosystem of cultural economic and policy changes. They help but they do not redefine adulthood alone.
