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Deep problems: term papers and social policy

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Dan Cassino

Contrary to what UA Associate Dean Alexis Hernandez says, students who buy term papers off the Internet should not be expelled. They should never have been admitted in the first place.

It seems that students are increasingly buying papers off the Internet. It's a natural combination: students have computers, credit cards and a desire to avoid having to write their own term papers. For a reasonable price, they can buy a paper, revise it a little to fit their needs and turn it in. Professors will only catch on if they've seen the essay before, or if two people are unlucky enough to turn in the same paper.

Solutions are not easy. Because of the on-line nature of these operations, they cannot be easily regulated. Regulation is also complicated by the fact that these companies are not doing anything illegal; they are careful to hedge themselves by claiming that the papers are simply to provide "educational resources" or to provide inspiration for the student. Though they are not fooling anyone, they can't be held responsible when their products are used in a manner that they were not intended for.

Even if the companies could be regulated, the root of the problem would still exist. Those students who are likely to use term papers they acquired on-line are those students who are uninspired, unscrupulous, uninterested in their classes, don't know how to manage their time or, perhaps, don't know how to write a paper. As long as these students are here, their will always be problems.

Some of the problems that these students have could be fixed at the university level. Counselors try to ensure that students take classes that they are interested in. Classes that cater mainly to first semester students often have lectures on how to manage time in order to be successful. Free help is available for students who are having trouble writing papers. But none of these steps should be necessary.

Coming into the university, students should have some idea of what they are interested in. Already, they should have some idea of how to manage their time: schedule time for classwork, then build everything else around that. People who have spent 12 years in the educational system and still can't write a coherent paragraph have more problems than even the best tutor can solve.

And that's the point. Students who can't meet the basic requirements to succeed at the university shouldn't be here. They would be far better served by vocational or trade schools. At least in these, they could learn something useful without wasting too many years of their lives and too much of their parents' money. Nor are salaries coming out of trade school anything to scoff at: a plumber's apprentice can command $30 an hour in a union state.

But, for some reason, we do scoff at trade schools and those who come out of them. If the child of a middle class family goes anywhere other than a university, he/she cannot be anything other than a failure. This is the underlying problem. As long as these views persist, we have no right to expect a solution to problems of this sort.

Universities are not for everyone. In this age of egalitarian social views, this is a controversial statement. A university should be a place for the inspired and the intelligent to expand themselves before entering the world. Allowing people in who don't belong here doesn't help anyone. Unqualified entrants waste their money and the money of their sponsors. Input from them in no way adds to the university community.

Trade schools can teach sales or cooking or accounting much more efficiently than a university can, because they allow the student to focus on one field rather than trying to force them to take classes they don't care about. Establishing these schools is the best way to serve the students and the state. As for the cheaters, it's not they who have failed the class, it's the system that's failed them.