Ending Unpaid Internships
Maria Carrasco
April 12, 2022
Colleges are creating new funds and programs to pay students for work when employers won’t. It’s one way to equalize internship opportunities, which have historically excluded low-income students.
Internships tend to advantage students who are already advantaged—essentially those who can afford to work for cheap or free.
According to data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers 2021 Student Survey, 74 percent of white students said they’d had unpaid internships and 73 percent had paid internships, compared to 8 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively, for Black students and 10.2 percent and 7 percent for Hispanic or Latinx students. Among first-generation students, 25.6 percent reported they were unpaid interns and 20.5 percent were paid.
And paid internships tend to pay off, making it more likely for students to land a job after college. According to NACE, students who’d worked as paid interns received an average of 1.12 job offers in 2021, while unpaid interns got an average of 0.85 and those with no internship experience received 0.64 job offers.
