It's a difficult question. Here are other factors to consider.<p>For example, "Time and again, students tell me of three common ways in which most high school and college classes kill their interest in novels". The author then describes those ways, but doesn't describe <i>why</i> there has been an increasing emphasis "now than in those proverbial eras of backwardness, the 1950s and 1980s".<p>There are at least three that I can think of. The author writes about students who study Russian literature, among others. Those decades were the Cold War, and many Americans studied aspects of the Soviet Union and Russian culture. For example, Condoleezza Rice studied Russian at Moscow State University and her PhD thesis was on military policy and politics in Czechoslovakia. From my own youth, I remember the TV show "Head of the Class", when it was filmed in Moscow. One of the characters loved Russian short stories.<p>I do not think there's the same interest now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, and Russian is not a superpower balancing the US. Thus, the sample population of students has changed.<p>The second thing I can think of is the rise of high stakes testing, which is all that incoming college students have ever experienced. These tests don't use novel-length reading passages. From what I gather, students are more tested on the <i>technical</i> aspects of the reading excerpt, rather than the reader’s <i>experience</i> - exactly what this essayist does not want.<p>The third is that the GI bill after WWII opened up college to a lot more people than previously, and until the start of the all-volunteer force in 1973 it offered a way to delay conscription. However, that is only the first 1/2 of "the 1950s and 1980s."