Student Union
- By Will Schick
Buying Fake Term Papers Could Hurt Career
What would happen if you found out your dentist had hired someone to take the test on molars for them? Or if the city engineer never took a bridge building class and was responsible for testing their structural integrity?
Today, an internet search for “buy a college paper” will yield a half a billion results, and pages upon pages of websites offering anything from personal essays and lab reports, to nursing papers and academic dissertations.
Marketed as original content, written by native-English-speaking professionals, and seemingly plagiarism proof, websites with names like essay shark, fab editors, pay for essay, papers owl, and my paper writer promise to deliver everything to desperate students with a money back guarantee.
Alison Thomas, a lecturer at American University in Washington whose research focuses on information literacy, finds this development to be troubling. She said she believes the online college paper industry has the potential to wreak serious damage to the overall public good.
“The public has placed its trust in universities. There’s a certification that’s happening there. They’re saying ‘yes, this person is capable of doing all the things the degree suggests they’re capable of doing,’” she said.
Overwhelmed
Many supporters and patrons of these services, however, say they provide much needed support to students overwhelmed with school work. They characterize universities as degree mills that neglect to teach students real-world skills. Since most students never write another academic paper after graduation, they argue, why should they bother to write them in school?
Thomas concedes that many students, particularly those not accustomed to writing in English, may struggle with their college writing assignments. But paper-writing skills, she said, are important because they develop the kinds of “habits of mind” academic institutions and universities widely regard as crucial.
“These are life skills, these are professional skills,” she said, adding that “to think critically, to communicate clearly, to process information, to do something with ideas” are competences that “transcend specific fields of study.”
On a recent online forum, one student admitted to using a writing service for two college papers. Despite receiving a B on both assignments, the student advised others against buying papers. It was best to “do your own work, cuz it just gets harder,” they said, meaning skipping lessons might come back in upper-level classes to haunt them.
In the Medium article “How to Cheat Your Way Through School,” writer J. Naran concurred. He claimed to have used the “global online marketplace” to cheat his way through one semester of college.
As a scholarship recipient, Naran said he needed to maintain a 3.75 GPA, but found himself struggling to keep his grades up after a romantic breakup and a friend’s calamity.
Naran said cheating will catch up with the cheater. Aside from the costs of paying others for work, students might find themselves working twice as hard later to catch up. Naran did not respond to requests for comment about his article.
Ghostwriter for hire
Victor, a college drop-out and published poet, said he found himself in desperate financial trouble a few years ago. He needed money to pay his rent and for his groceries. He started a website marketing himself as a ghostwriter for hire.
He was approached by a student who asked him to write a first-year psychology paper for her. After she received an A, word spread, and Victor said he soon started to average 10 papers per week.
In an interview, Victor admitted to feeling guilt and shame about this work, calling it “wrong.” He said the most he ever earned was $700 for half of a student’s academic dissertation. Victor spoke only if his name were not disclosed, fearing damage to his reputation. He also said he worried it would impact a pending book contract.
There are thousands of ghostwriters for hire online, many who claim to have advanced degrees. One academic who also feared being fired if their identity were revealed admitted to writing papers for money. They said they needed the money.
Unlike traditional freelance writing, ghostwriting college papers can be quite lucrative, and knowledgeable writers can pocket hundreds of dollars for minimal work.
The college paper site Edusson claims their “expert” writers earn an average of $1,500 to $2,000 a month. The website writerbay.com offers writers the opportunity to choose from posted “jobs” and make anywhere from $75 for a 4,000-word nursing paper to $439 for a 1,100-word marketing paper.
Victor says he no longer writes college papers for money. After writing so much on so many topics, he now considers himself to be somewhat of a renaissance man. Writing papers, he said, has helped to educate him.
Justine Zapin, an adjunct professor who teaches first-year composition at American University in Washington said in an interview that it is common for non-native English speaking students to feel pressure to hire someone to write their essays for them.
Easily identified as false
But according to Zapin, professors at colleges across the U.S. can easily identify a falsified admissions essay by simply comparing it to the language used in assigned classroom work.
“The difference is really obvious,” she said.
This type of cheating may be the reason many universities are turning to third party interviewing services as part of their admissions process. Today, companies such as Initial View, based in China, videotapes interviews with prospective students in part, to verify and showcase their English speaking skills.
In any case, students who opt to intentionally cheat the system run the risk of being found out.
Like many universities, the academic integrity office at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) explicitly states on their webpage that students who are caught using online college paper writing services “almost always” end up suspended or dismissed from their universities. In 2017-2018, there were a total of 845 academic integrity allegation cases at UCSD.
Students, they argue, should strive to be truthful in their work because “society relies on the UCSD degree to mean something,” namely, “that a graduate has the requisite knowledge and abilities to perform in a professional role.”
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College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
