Attending university means paying your school a lot of money. Tuition for classes, student fees and housing merely scratch the surface of the tens of thousands of dollars it costs to get a degree. Of course, it makes sense to pay to take classes, but if I am not taking classes, why am I required to pay tuition?
In social work, during your last semester pursuing a bachelors degree, it is required to have a full-time internship to gain field experience. I understand this — it helps students solidify what you want to do as well as practice the skills you have learned. What I do not understand, however, is why we have to pay to take classes during this semester if we don’t take courses.
It’s impossible to work a full-time internship and take courses, which is why NC State prohibits social work students from registering for courses that contribute both toward their degree and for fun.
I’m not saying I should not have to pay for anything school related. Paying student fees that go towards the resources we have on campus makes sense, but paying for classes does not.
The money paid towards classes supports the buildings classes are held in and helps pay professors. But if I won’t be in these buildings or relying on professors, why should I fund these expenses?
Moreover, I will not be living on campus, nor eating in dining halls, so an argument for these features cannot be made either. What exactly will my thousands of dollars in tuition be paying for if I will not be stepping foot on campus all semester?
This is exacerbated by the fact that, unfortunately, many internships are unpaid.
Additionally, the cost of living is increasing rapidly, and students require a lot of support to simultaneously stay alive and get a degree. I myself find it hard to balance so many bills. Charging students like me for services they are not receiving might mean having to choose between paying NC State and being able to eat proper meals that month.
Since social work requires a full-time internship placement, there are not enough hours in the day to get an additional job for income. All my time will be dedicated to free work, and yet, I get to come home to demands from NC State to pay them.
Internships have nothing to do with the University because they are with unaffiliated organizations. In this case, it makes no sense to charge me for an off-campus internship.
Social work is not the only unlucky major to deal with this.
Other degrees like education also have field placements in which they pay the University for classes they are not taking. For education majors, they are expected to teach a minimum of 10 weeks to fulfill a course credit. Unsurprisingly, they are expected to do this work unpaid.
It is time we stopped charging students to be in field placements like the one I will take up next spring. It costs the university nothing for these students to be off-campus working. It makes no logical sense to charge tuition fees if students are not taking classes. In fact, it’s gluttonous.
