Within the past week, several thousand young men and women received their degrees from Kansas University, and more than 600 students at Lawrence High School and Free State High School received their high school diplomas.

Today, one of this nation’s most pressing problems is the unemployment situation, with thousands looking for jobs and hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, having given up the search.

Together, all these individuals may account for approximately 14 to 15 percent unemployment. Unemployment is sure to be a major issue in the 2014 and 2016 elections, and the current debate over the federal minimum wage will continue to be a hot topic.

Likewise, there is considerable discussion about the importance of a college education, advanced degrees or technical schools offering the best job opportunities.

A recent Wall Street Journal article titled “How Summer Can Change Your Future” told of an experiment by researchers at two universities who created 9,400 fictitious resumes for supposed recent graduates and used them to apply for more than 2,000 online job openings in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Portland.

These fictional applicants applied for jobs in banking, finance, insurance, management, marketing and sales.

Each resume claimed the applicant had graduated three years earlier, in 2010, and had had only one job since then. They sent four different resumes for each job. Half the resumes showed a major in business subjects; the other half had majors in English, history, biology or psychology. These fictitious applicants had different grade-point averages and class rankings. Some had held summer internships; some had not.

Five out of six of the job applicants got no response from the applications. Just 17 percent were invited for an interview. The major areas of academic study didn’t seem to make a difference. Neither did higher grade-point averages or honors they received in school.

What mattered the most during their college years was a summer internship. “Candidates whose resumes could point to pre-graduation work experience in the industry they were applying for were 14 percent more likely to get job interviews,” according to the study.

It’s likely the same situation or importance of internships also applies to high school graduates being accepted at better colleges and universities.

Internships, solid summer jobs, monitoring and other means of experiencing the demands and requirements of holding a job — and learning from this experience — all play a significant role in building an attractive application for a job or college admission.

In today’s environment, it probably is more important than ever.

The trouble is, there don’t seem to be as many internships or monitoring opportunities as in past years. Also, there are not as many summer jobs for high school students as there used to be.

Part of this probably is due to more restrictive laws regarding work conditions for those in the 14- to 17-year-old range, minimum wages, the number of hours student can be employed, safety factors and requirements for unpaid internships. Another factor may be the increased frequency of firms being audited to see whether they are adhering to pay requirements and whether unpaid internships measure up to requirements as a “learning experience.”

Just how many of the 600-plus local high school graduates have had meaningful opportunities or internships? How many have full-time jobs? How many of the thousands of KU graduates are leaving Mount Oread with significant internships on their resumes?

There’s no magic, overnight solution, but think how great it would be for more local high school students to have the opportunity for good summer jobs and internships. Likewise, it would seem wise for university officials to try to figure out ways to encourage students and employers to increase internship opportunities. It would be good for all parties.

The big challenge is to have industry and business operations that would provide increased employment or internship positions.

It’s relatively easy to talk about the permanent employment situation, but it’s not likely to improve until there is a major improvement in this nation’s economy and in support of free enterprise and less reliance on federal subsidies and unemployment compensation.