This summer I had the opportunity to intern at a law firm, where I would likely have sorted paperwork and fetched coffee like thousands of other students trying to wheedle their way into the professional world.
There was only one problem: The position was unpaid.
After staying up a few nights doing the math – rent plus tuition plus food – I gave up. I couldn’t take the job because I couldn’t afford to.
The prevalence of unpaid internships available to college students acts as a major impediment for students who cannot afford to work without pay but who are also on the cusp of entering the full-time job market.
This is especially problematic considering that the youth unemployment rate remains at nearly double the overall rate, 16 percent according to the June jobs report. We are also a generation of young people being buried in student loan debt and facing an unprecedented financial burden to pay for college.
The economic vulnerability of college students warrants protection and support for students. In some cases, unpaid internships are explicitly against U.S. Department of Labor policies, meriting legal action by interns who feel they have been exploited at unpaid internships and tighter federal oversight on internship programs. In cases where pay is not warranted, outside support for interns in the form of grants and scholarships can help foster opportunity for people who can’t afford to put in hours without pay.
Not every internship should necessarily be a paying one – sometimes employers gain very little benefit from their interns while the intern receives valuable training, experience and connections. In cases such as these, unpaid positions make
sense for everyone involved. But in cases where the intern is doing real work and providing real services, they should receive some form of monetary compensation.
An internship must be more beneficial to the intern than to the employer in order to be unpaid under guidelines set by the Department of Labor. As college students applying for internships, we should understand when we are legally entitled to compensation for work we are doing.
This is particularly true in sectors where internships are essentially a requirement for hiring and also almost exclusively unpaid, such as entertainment and media. In the past two years, there have been at least 11 lawsuits brought to employers by interns in these industries who felt they had been exploited.
This recent wave of legal pushback by interns who feel they have been unfairly used as free labor suggests that employers may well be violating the Department of Labor’s standards for unpaid internships. That means that tighter federal oversight of unpaid internship programs is needed to make sure that companies aren’t exploiting their interns. The legal precedent set by lawsuits such as the high-profile “Black Swan” case, where an unpaid intern successfully sued Fox Entertainment Group, should be used to force employers to compensate interns when they are legally required to do so.
In cases where students are not entitled to pay but still cannot afford to take unpaid positions, they should seek outside funding for their internship opportunities in the same way they look for funding for college. Because internships have become an important stepping stone to entering certain professions, we should look for ways to fund internship opportunities for young people of a lower socioeconomic status.
Charitable organizations often support unpaid interns in fields they believe to support the public good, such as journalism and the nonprofit sector. For example, in June, ProPublica raised over $23,000 through a Kickstarter campaign to hire an intern to investigate the “intern economy.” Students who can’t afford to take an unpaid internship should be aware and make use of opportunities like these.
The creation of more funds and grants to help students pay for their internships is as necessary and beneficial to young people as financial aid for college – both create opportunity for low-income students to have successful and productive careers, and both deserve attention by students and organizations looking to benefit them.
Internships have become a vital and necessary part of looking for paid work in many industries. That so many of them are unpaid means some industries will perpetually be comprised of employees from higher socioeconomic tiers.
Recognition by both interns and employers that unpaid positions are problematic could increase the number of companies investing in paid internship programs.
If that happens, next summer I might just be able to take a few months off from my job at a coffee shop and still make rent.
Email Delgadillo at ndelgadillo@gmail.com or tweet her @ndelgadillo07. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion.
Most students are thrilled when they are approved for a loan and happily sigh the contract. They enter into the transaction freely and usually enthusiastically. Stop whining.
Oh, and if a law firm kidnaps you from a campus bar and handcuffs you to a desk in an unpaid position, especially if they lied to you about the pay, call the police.
While I agree that loans are voluntary and am pretty staunchly against student entitlement…I still pay my interns. It’s called not being a cheap ass, and it’s the right thing to do.
If you work for a piss-poor, kumbaya non-profit, and are providing an exceptional learning experience and references, then you can justify not paying interns. Otherwise, pony up.
http://projects.propublica.org/internships/get-involved