I remember when “summer vacation” was just that — a vacation. One thing that puzzled me as a first-year was the heavy emphasis Brown students placed on internships. I heard the assertion time and time again that internships were essential to landing a job after graduation and to gaining necessary experience and skills. The idea of seeking internships and working — aside from a part-time job to earn extra summer cash — was alien to me. But in today’s world, the trinity of college degrees, internships and prior job experience are expected from those looking to gain a professional entry-level position.
College students’ demand for internships has gotten so high that companies can have competitive internship positions, even if they are unpaid. One thing that puzzled me was that unpaid positions even existed. Still more surprising is that the offering of unpaid internship positions — giving companies the benefit of unpaid labor — can be deemed legal. But it is true that today’s economy is an employer’s market, and that college students, concerned about their futures and about getting their feet in the metaphorical door, desire internship opportunities enough that they will accept unpaid positions.
I define an unpaid internship as one that offers neither direct monetary compensation nor indirect compensation through arrangements or benefits provided on the employee’s behalf, such as housing or certification programs. The employee should benefit in some tangible way, and the company should either directly or indirectly compensate employees for their work through the company’s financial resources. In my eyes, a program that either directly pays employees or reasonably compensates them in another manner is basically ethical.
The concepts of working without compensation, and especially of paying to work, are entirely counterintuitive. But where there is demand, there inevitably will be a provider. Is the value placed on undergraduate internships as high as that placed on degrees? According to analysts at High Fliers Research, “half of the (United Kingdom’s) top graduate recruiters said those without relevant experience have ‘little or no chance’ of being offered a job at their firm this year, even if they have a first-class degree from a top university.” In an article for U.S. News and World Report, Brian Burnsed wrote that in America, “University officials and employers almost universally maintain that partaking in an internship … before graduation is integral to finding meaningful employment in today’s seemingly impenetrable job market.”
It is an established fact that internships are an increasingly vital component of a successful application for a professional position. Sure, it is definitely possible to have competitive internships, even if uncompensated. The question is not of whether it is possible, but whether it is fair to have uncompensated competitive internships — and the answer is “no.” It is totally unethical for any employer to offer an uncompensated internship, unless there are benefits that are relatively equivalent to pay offered to employees. Unpaid internships, especially those students take away from home, are not only unpaid but also cause interns to effectively pay for working. When one factors in housing, transportation, food, clothing and other miscellaneous costs associated with living, particularly if the position is in a place where the student does not reside, the student ends up paying dearly to work.
The argument by these companies — that the skills, experience and networking offered by the internship is enough that financial compensation is unnecessary — is utterly ridiculous. Experience does not put a roof over a poor intern’s head, nor does career building advice fill a struggling student’s stomach. According to an article from InternMatch.com, “the Department of Labor has a clear six-point test that charges employers with paying interns if, among other criteria, the employer derives ‘any value’ from the participation of the intern.” Of this practice, the article states, “the unpaid internship paradigm is inherently unfair, discriminatory, perpetuates inequality and hurts the economy.”
An unpaid internship will only attract students from a higher socioeconomic background. How can students who can barely afford college pay to work during the summer, when they desperately need to earn all the money they can? Sure, scholarships and funding are available for students who need it, but these are all quite competitive, and funding-backed students make up a minority of those who accept these positions. If an organization benefits from the labor of an employee, it should pay or otherwise financially compensate said employee. To refuse to do so, whatever the alternative argument, is unethical, greedy and dishonest.
In a world where, according to Business Insider, “more than half of college student internships are unpaid,” completely eliminating uncompensated internships would be impractical. To do so would drastically reduce the number of internships available. Some students can afford to take unpaid internships, and they should be able to do so if they wish.
The answer is to make stricter and more routinely enforced guidelines by which to judge whether or not an unpaid internship is legal. The current guidelines established by the Department of Labor, which an internship must follow in order to be legally unpaid, need to be enforced more than they presently are. Programs should be scrutinized properly in a method that abides by the Department of Labor’s standards.
It is time to hold all competitive unpaid internships accountable and to make sure that the many unpaid internship programs that fall through the cracks of government regulations are subjected to these standards.
Armani Madison ’16 is one of those students who can’t really afford or justify paying to work. He can be reached at armani_madison@brown.edu.
ADVERTISEMENT
