Unpaid Interns, Complicit Colleges

This argument analysis paper examines the article, “Manual Labor, All Night Long: The Reality of Paying for College” written by Alena Semuels in 2015. This article discusses how different types of students use different resources to pay for college. It also examines how working while in college can affect a student’s grades and whether or not they graduate.

Accordingly, Marty Nemko, in his article, establishes college to be a deceiving business that is suitable only to a selective, precise percentile of high school graduates. In addition, Nemko states throughout the self-explanatory article that deciding to proceed to college will not necessarily guarantee a successful, effective outcome for students. Moreover, he covers most areas that involve, or revolve around, college. For instance, education, unemployment, debt and jobs subsequent to college are some of the risks that one must ponder and determine if college is worth it in the end. Furthermore, Nemko discloses the actuality of college and how it is unfavorable for most people. However, he does not discourage high school graduates to still

In Freeman Hrabowski’s piece, “Colleges Prepare People for Life,” he mentions the differing opinions between going to college and choosing another path. Many people find college too expensive, and once a student graduates, he or she will face enormous debt and potentially risk still being unprepared for the working world. Hrabowski acknowledges this, and also notices that many students who do attend college occasionally make the wrong decision in terms of choosing a school and major. But while the stakes are high, he argues that college not only provides financial stability, but also allows students to become more virtuous citizens in the long run. He does this by providing information to backup his claims, using a passionate tone to explain his beliefs, and paralleling college attendance with good intentions.

America’s education system has been in a state of distress for the past decade, but garnished headlines recently as the student loan debt crisis reached over a trillion dollars. In conjunction with that, tuition is no longer the only obstacle a student faces when considering their future. As generations come and go, universities have slowly, but surely, been angling their education in a way to favor profit over knowledge. Because of the new direction higher education models are taking, Magdalena Kay questions her readers, “is there a problem with students, with teachers, with administrators, or maybe

Last Week Tonight is a news/satire program hosted by John Oliver. During the program, Oliver discusses current events and attempts to persuade the general audience in his viewing. In the episode “The NCAA,” Oliver talks about the NCAA with a thesis of unfairly compensated student-athletes deserving more than what universities provide. This essay will analyze the effectiveness of his persuasive methods towards his arguments.

College Sports starting with Football and ending with Basketball make up to $3 billion every year. All this money is then used up by colleges to improve their campus, pay the professors and the coaches. But, what about the students who work hard to gain all that money for the colleges? They get a salary, which they can not even imagine - zero. Many people around the United States believe that the student should also get paid for their effort. So, an anonymous writer writes an article to persuade the colleges in the US to pay their student athletes.

Although for-profit colleges offer higher-level education to interested students, they also operate as businesses attempting to maximize profit, which raises the question: should education be viewed as a mere product/service to be sold to those students willing to pay a designated price or an enlightening experience that is fundamental to improving oneself and society? Since for-profit colleges are able to make a profit, unlike their non-profit counterparts, they have placed a larger emphasis on maximizing revenue than providing valuable education, which has led to an increase in the recruitment of students, who are the primary sources of revenue, through methods of advertising and promotion. The usage of aggressive marketing strategies has been extremely effective in increasing student enrollment at for-profit colleges by appealing to vulnerable individuals, such as veterans or high-school dropouts, with the ability to obtain a better career and life. However, in an effort to recruit more students, the advertising and promotional tactics used by these institutions have misled students by presenting false information about tuition costs and credibility of the provided education. By doing so, students who wished to participate in higher education to improve themselves have, instead, experienced mounting student debt and an inability to find a job supportive of their degree. By belittling education into a

Zirin goes into depth about how sport writers get pampered with expensive gifts from corporate sponsors and how the NCAA is making money off of uncompensated young athletes. While Ajmani goes into detail about how students are not getting fair treatment, "College students are pawns in a huge chess game" (Ajmani 209); students don't benefit from the games, as they are the ones getting played. Student athletes put themselves at risk just for the love of the game; if they get hurt on the field or court, they don’t have worker's comp for injuries, according to Dave Meggyesy. Both authors believe there is corruption in the NCAA system but focus on different

Our present day job market has seen a marked increase in competition among college graduates. Over the past 40 years, we have seen a 20 percent increase in bachelor’s degrees in citizens over the age of 25 (“Fast Facts” 1). This increase in degree holders has exacerbated the competition of our job markets and has forced workers to seek a further competitive edge. According to an annual survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, an astonishing 95 percent of employers said relevant work experience is a major aspect in hiring decisions, and approximately half of the surveyed employers wanted the experience to come from internships (Hansen 1). Hence, many college students find themselves taking unpaid internships as resume boosters. Although these internship experiences are significant in providing college students with practical skills, their ethicality is highly questionable. Unpaid internships exploit interns, widen socioeconomic disparity, and offer little future benefit to interns. This paper will begin by framing the problem and highlighting the importance of this phenomenon. Following that, the multiple perspectives on this issue will be discussed and an analysis of the pros and cons of unpaid internships will unravel that unpaid internships are inherently flawed. Lastly, the paper will acknowledge that completely abolishing unpaid internships is an

Throughout the essay, Charles Murray stresses the idea that college is the wonderland of finding oneself and to find the career that one would want to follow for the rest of their lives. “College is seen as the open sesame to a good job and a desirable way for adolescents to transition to adulthood. Neither reason is as persuasive as it first appears.” Murray, C (2008) Practically spoken, this is not normally the case. College is a fair amount of work, much more work than one would normally acquire through any course of a high school or secondary school setting. In no way saying that the average student cannot meet the requirement and achieve success over the amounted work, it would also be ridiculous to expect every graduate to pursue going into higher education with the expansion of work that will be given.

Andrew Delbanco’s essay “A college Education: What is its purpose?” gives three reasons why college still matters. Delbanco teaches at Columbia University, where he’s the director of American studies and has written several books on the meaning and benefits of college. Delbanco, begins his essay by discussing what college means to each individual student. He states, “For many more students, college means the anxious pursuit of marketable skills in overcrowded, under resourced institutions. For still others, it means traveling by night to a fluorescent office building or to a “virtual classroom” that only exists in cyberspace.” (1) Delbano successfully uses pathos to appeal to his audience’s emotions, his personal experience and anecdotal combine to persuade his readers to consider or realize the importance of receiving a college education, however his essay contains minor flaws that can counteract his claims.

Academic obligations are not the only responsibilities for American high school students. One of the responsibilities that many students have is a job. The unemployment rate for teenagers is a mere 9.1 percent. The reasons why students work wildly vary. For some, it’s to earn

. For the “College” section, items 1-3, who is harmed and who benefits from these unethical behaviors?

Most of us remember spending time as a student working as an unpaid intern. Whether we received college credit, or simply used the experience to fill out our résumés, unpaid internships have allowed millions of young people to have the opportunity gain hands-on knowledge about an industry before making a decision about their future careers.

desired jobs. Internships provide valuable experience necessary for jobs and are an important part of the academic career. However, when it comes to internships, the issue of unpaid internships may be raised with opinions differing on the question of the benefits of such unpaid internships. Many people believe that since a salary does not cover the emerging costs, like living expenses and transportation, unpaid internships turn into a pricy experience that lay an even