One spring day, as I was vigorously applying to summer internships — with the fear of falling behind my peers looming over me — my dad insisted that college was supposed to be about having fun and finding yourself in an academic environment. While the statement sounded blasphemous at the time, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

A decade ago, college included basking under the afternoon sun in the courtyard with friends or spending Friday nights dancing without anxieties about securing your future. After the pandemic, college took a backseat to the stress of finding work in an era where the job market is declining and nepotism is thriving.

Some students of color and those from low-income, first-generation backgrounds struggle to balance their studies with the lighthearted aspects of college as they try to secure internships and work experience, often without the family preparation or financial cushion their peers enjoy. A 2023 Gallup poll found that 41% of undergraduates pursued an internship — but that number shrinks to roughly a quarter of first-generation students.

Without external work experience, the benefits of acquiring an undergraduate degree are now scarce. A 2021 LinkedIn study found that 35% of entry-level job postings asked for multiple years of prior experience, rendering bachelor’s degrees insufficient, thus furthering disparities between those who can dedicate time to unpaid internships and those who cannot.

On social media, numerous TikTok videos share the experiences of people who applied to hundreds of internships, secured a handful of interviews and ultimately received a single job offer, if any. It’s become a trend to post about different tactics of securing internships, such as cold emailing and LinkedIn’s “Easy Apply” feature. Since social media is widely accessible, thousands of students likely apply the same way.

This, in turn, prompts employers and recruiters to demand more: What once seemed overqualified is now the minimum, with a master’s degree virtually functioning as the new bachelor’s. This new era brings higher costs and lower returns for students: Graduate degrees increase student debt, and many internships are unpaid or “compensated” with college credit, driving students to literally pay their schools to work.

In today’s economy, where the wealth gap is wider than ever, few have the privilege to dedicate months to work full-time for a job that doesn’t pay. Low-income students are disproportionately impacted: Most cannot afford living costs or forgo paid work to intern without monetary compensation.

According to the 2020 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, nearly three-quarters of undergraduates work while enrolled, and among them, more than 40% work full-time hours. In a 2023 study published in AERA Open, researchers found that students who worked more than 20 hours per week are roughly 20% less likely to graduate on time than peers who worked fewer hours.

These students, lacking a financial advantage, also do not enjoy the freedom to dedicate months of their time to internships that offer little to no true compensation. The aforementioned financial problem is not the only thing stopping less fortunate students from pursuing internships, though. Even if one manages to find internships and earn graduate degrees, they are never guaranteed jobs.

Some companies post “ghost” job openings, creating a public application while planning to fill the role internally or hire candidates with personal connections to the company.

Most first-generation college students lack connections in the companies they aspire to work for, forcing them to pursue internships through traditional means: applying to job listings and hoping their qualifications are sufficient. Unfortunately, they often aren’t; extracurricular activities and general “resume boosters” still cost money. Thus, marginalized and lower-income students are left at a disadvantage.

In short, marginalized students work twice as hard to get an internship they are half as likely to obtain. These students lose the social joys college offers and the job security their more privileged peers have access to.

To address these challenges, USC offers career fairs, resume and interview workshops, and alumni networking events that, in theory, give students relatively equal chances at job offers. But access is not evenly distributed. First-generation and low-income students often lack the polished resumes, professional attire or family ties that wealthier classmates possess.

The problem extends beyond what USC alone can fix: The University can provide the space, but it can’t fully bridge this divide.

Though less privileged students bear a heavy cost, they are not the only ones affected. Even if everyone secured the perfect internships and spent the rest of their lives working to survive increasing economic stratification, it is worth considering whether life should be reduced to blind ambition and the endless, unequal climb up the corporate ladder.

A change in the job application system is required — one that doesn’t leave self-exploration and joy to the privileged while the working class is left behind to grasp what is left.