Unpaid internships jeopardize students’ financial situation
As Keene State College seniors savor their last year in school and get their resumes ready to hit the job market, a national campaign that intends to end unpaid internships spots different aspects of hands-on experiences for students.
Career advisors and college officials suggest students take advantage of multiple aspects of learning during their time in college, and not just inside the classroom. “Paid and unpaid internships can both be very beneficial for students, we encourage students to look into these high impact practices,” Associate Director of Academic and Career Advising, Kelly Graham, said.
However, unpaid internships are often not an option for some KSC students. “I would love to do an internship, but I couldn’t afford it. Money is the main reason I have never had the chance to do an internship,” Brittney Rando, a senior studying psychology at KSC said.
Fair Pay Campaign, a national movement against unpaid internships within for-profit organizations, supports students like Rando. The aim of the movement is to advocate for similar opportunities to everyone, and not only to, “wealthy people who can afford to work for free,” campaign organizer Mikey Franklin said.
Franklin is a British political activist currently living in Washington, D.C. He said he started the movement after he was told he had to start as an intern when looking for a job on Capitol Hill.
At KSC, officials said the college works to provide the opportunity for all students to be enriched by different learning experiences, even despite financial issues. KSC Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Melinda Treadwell said at a student assembly meeting in September that one of the focuses of the academic department is to increase the amount of students who are being part of hands-on activities such as internships.
“We recognize KSC has a big number of first-generation college students. That often comes with the need for students to work while they go through college,” Director of Continuing Education at KSC, Robert Baker, said.
Photo Illustration by Brian Cantore / Photo Editor
“We know most students need to work over the summer to be able to save money,” Graham said. She went on, “An option would be to take part of an internship during the academic year and for academic credit, so that it is part of their academic plan and tuition.”
Baker explained that at KSC, students are able to receive up to 20 credits for the cost of a full-time semester. He said students often have some extra credits left. “It might take them time to be part of an internship, but doesn’t necessarily cost them any extra money because they are still under twenty credits,” Baker stated.
Still, for some students, that is easier said than done. “The only time when I think I could do an internship is during summer. I work three jobs so I don’t have any time. I have to work because I need to pay my rent,” Rando said.
Like Rando, the majority of KSC students are not taking this recommendation. Baker said that under 40 percent of KSC journalism and communication students participate in internships for college credit.
Information provided by the Registrar’s Office indicated that 120 students completed internships during the Fall 2012, 201 during the Spring 2013 and 39 during the summer of 2013. A total of 360 internship courses were completed. At the moment, there are 953 full-time juniors and 971 full-time seniors at the college. If the number stays the same, less than 20 percent of KSC upperclassmen will have completed an internship for credit by the end of this year.
The data only reflects the numbers of students who earned college credit.
KSC senior Chloe Nixon was part of an unpaid internship over the summer. She said she decided not to do it for college credit. “I think we [KSC] could do a better job to make internships available for students. It was hard for me, I didn’t really had a lot of assistance through the school in finding it,” Nixon said.
Still, Nixon described her experiences as “one of the best things I have ever done, they put a lot of effort into teaching us things, introducing us to people, I had tons of opportunities to go to conference and meetings.”
For Franklin, internships certainly help college students get used to a professional environment. However, he stated he considers when they are unpaid, the opportunity narrows down to just a few options. “Some people might say, ‘I don’t mind working for free as long as I get the experience and networking that company offers.’ Well, wealthy people are in that position. There are many that just cannot see that as an option. They need to pay their rent too,” Franklin said.
Indeed, even students who can afford to do unpaid internships are put through tough situations. Nixon said to afford to do an unpaid internship was not easy. “I saved up through a lot of summers, I worked a lot of hours, I took another job during the school year, so I have been working a lot to pay for this. Also, my parents did help me out with some of it otherwise I couldn’t have done it,” Nixon said. “I know a lot of students wouldn’t be able to take the time off work [to do an unpaid internship]—In a big company that is making a lot of money, they can afford to pay people and they should do it,” she concluded.
Graham stated often times the learning experience, rather than the paycheck, could benefit students in the future. “We hear from employers all the time in all different industries that if a student doesn’t have some form of internship, related work experience or experiential learning related to their field, sometimes they don’t even consider them for jobs. An unpaid internship can be valuable if it does eventually lead you to a job after graduation.”
Yet, statistics indicate that in some cases, unpaid internships might not be as favorable as students and advisers would like. According to an article in The Atlantic Magazine, the National Association of Colleges and Employers indicated that 63.1 percent of students who have done paid internship had received at least one job offer. On the other hand, 37 percent of students who did unpaid internships received at least one job offer and so did 35.8 percent of students who had never been interns.
Jordan Weissmann from The Atlantic Magazine stated that the conclusion of the study seemed to be that, “Unpaid internships don’t seem to give college kids much of a leg up when it comes time to look for employment.”
Franklin said Fair Pay Campaign supporters are working to change the mind set some people have regarding internships. “Interns think they can’t get a paid job, we need to change that. The culture of unpaid internships is deeply engraved, but we will stop it,” he stated.
Franklin said stopping unpaid internships will not decrease opportunity for students and young graduates to job professional opportunities. He went on, “If unpaid internship within for-profit organizations stop, companies will still hire interns. The job interns are doing needs to be done.”
Baker said he thinks some for-profit organizations will no longer be able to offer internships if they are required to pay a stipend, “but it will be an improvement for those who continue to offer internships. It will attract more students, so the organizations may be more selective of the students they bring in for an internship.”
Both Franklin and Baker agreed that for-profit organizations should pay a salary to their interns. “I think it is a fair way for us to treat each other when it comes to work,” Baker stated.
If Fair Pay Campaign’s goal could be accomplished, it would assuredly benefit many students throughout the nation, said Franklin. Rando said, “In my field, if you want to go into a graduate program, which is what I am looking into, experience is crucial. They prefer people that have done internships or had jobs related to psychology. I would really love to do an internship, and it could be paid, it would be so great.”
Karina Barriga Albring can be contacted at kbarriga@keene-equinox.com
