Overview

• Many Gen Z students arrive on campus without basic skills like cooking, laundry and financial management.
• Institutions from the University of Waterloo to Toronto Metropolitan University have introduced ‘Adulting 101’ toolkits covering budgeting, nutrition, household upkeep and relationship health.
• Freshman Aldhen Garcia and third-year student Bella Hudson report feeling overwhelmed by routine tasks and are calling for structured life skills instruction.
• Psychologist Jean Twenge and other experts link these gaps to helicopter parenting, extended adolescence and prolonged financial dependence on parents.
• Educators emphasize that lasting solutions require earlier focus on independence, problem-solving and self-advocacy in secondary education.