PORTLAND — Cursive handwriting is vanishing from colleges in Oregon, where it’s becoming endangered and may near extinction in another generation, educators say.

Most students write by typing on their computers and when they do write by hand, most of them print, The Oregonian reported.

“I do not write in cursive,” said Kiran Pattani, 20, a freshman at George Fox University in Newberg. “I just feel printing is easier and easier to read as well.”

Andy Coyle, 18, a freshman at the University of Oregon, said he hasn’t written in cursive since elementary school. He hasn’t needed to, he said, until the SAT college entrance exam required him to write a statement in cursive, which he found challenging.

“I print,” Coyle said. “I think it’s faster. … It’s easier to read.”

At the University of Portland, Richard Christen, an education professor, leafs through short essays his students wrote in class. Only two of the 17 papers are in cursive.

The College Board got similar results when it sampled 6,498 essays written for its SAT college entrance exam between March 2005 and January 2006. Just 15 percent of the essays were written in cursive.

Christen, who has studied the history of handwriting, said the aesthetic qualities of handwriting are lost with print.

Cursive writing — in its flourishes and graceful strokes — expresses an artistic beauty that goes beyond its utility and gives artistic experience to those who use it, he said.

Students today “are not doing this kind of craftsmanship activity that they used to do on a daily basis,” Christen said.

They also may be losing an edge in their learning. Researchers using magnetic resonance imag- ing to study brain activity say hand- writing, whether print or cursive, engages more of the brain in learning and forming ideas.

Oregon’s public school curriculum standards call for teaching cursive handwriting to students in third and fourth grade. But in fifth grade through grade 12, students are expected only to write legibly, whether in cursive or print.

In college, it’s possible for students to almost entirely avoid writing by hand. They can send notes to friends by e-mail or text, and take notes in class on their laptops or iPad computer tablets.

Students, including Coyle at UO, say they see no consequences for choosing to print.

“Since there is no need for (cursive), at least for me, I don’t think it’s that important,” Coyle said.