Red Hawk Student Union

In today's economy students are becoming increasingly exploited. If not through tuition costs or other means it is through entry-level jobs disguised as unpaid internships. More and more graduates are expected to work for free to gain access to a better life; but is there really any better life to be had?

Not only this but also the use of adjuncts also broadens trends for the exploitation of our academic labor. The salary for which adjuncts are paid is nowhere near a livable wage. We're on a deadly path as our academic institutions are rotting from the inside out.

Why You Should Never Have Taken That Prestigious Internship Journalist and scholar Sarah Kendzior explains how a prestige economy predicated on unpaid internships is bankrupting America's future.

"Graduation is often a time for inspiration, not attacks—although that may have been lost on the first couple. Still, neither Michelle Obama nor Barack Obama could possibly fail to grasp that their words echo beyond commencement services and to audiences far and wide. In that respect, the speeches they’ve shared were written for all of us, and perhaps for black youth in especially, who are at once being bombarded with insulting stereotypes, and being blamed for a reality they haven’t constructed or can easily benefit from."

The First Couple’s Post-Racial Bootstraps Myth | The Nation Michelle and Barack Obama’s troubling advice to black graduates includes some seriously worn-out stereotypes.