For job-seeking students, internships have gone from luxury to necessity. But government officials nationwide are also beginning to worry if internships have gone from educational to illegal.
In 1992, only 17 percent of graduating students had at least one internship under their belt. In 2008, that amount was 50 percent. And of those thousands of internships, between 25 and 50 percent are unpaid. Although many unpaid internships provide students with valuable experience worth more than a paycheck, there is growing concern about companies exploiting interns seeking a résumé builder and banking on young workers being too afraid to discuss the wrongdoings.
Michelle Farrell, a senior finance major, said the unpaid marketing internship she had the summer after her freshman year was so terrible she decided to change her major.
“I worked over 50 hours most weeks for a company promising me ‘vital experience in the marketing industry,'” Farrell said. “Instead, I did sales the whole summer with almost no guidance from my supervisors; I had no idea what to do and didn’t even learn anything.”
Amid the increasing scrutiny — both California and Oregon have in recent weeks released revised guidelines on when internships can be unpaid — the U.S. Labor Department yesterday issued a memo clarifying the rules. It applies a six-part test to every internship.
The key standard is an “educational environment,” which employers have interpreted in the past to mean universities must oversee unpaid internships and give students academic credit. The memo backs this explanation.
“[T]he more an internship program is structured around a classroom or academic experience as opposed to the employer’s actual operations, the more likely the internship will be viewed as an extension of the individual’s educational experience (this often occurs where a college or university exercises oversight over the internship program and provides educational credit),” the statement reads.
In addition, the intern cannot simply replace paid workers, and the employer cannot derive an “immediate advantage” from the intern’s work.
Even with the clarification, problems and confusion remain. Intern Bridge, an internship research and consulting firm, estimates that one out of every five internships in the United States has an illegal compensation structure.
Ross Eisenbrey, the vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, said the issue came to his attention when he was reading news coverage about “30-something displaced workers” who were working unpaid internships.
“It was a clear violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, yet the companies involved apparently thought that calling these jobs ‘internships’ made the free labor legal,” he said.
Eisenbrey said he reported several cases of illegal, unpaid internships to state departments of labor in New Jersey and New York. The institute has also drafted a policy memorandum that calls for an enforcement of regulations on internships.
Many students at the university said they feel as if the companies for which they interned used them for the companies’ own economic savings or promised them an academic experience the internship didn’t deliver.
Stephanie, a senior who refrained from using her last name because she still works at the company, said she is worried about the final paper she needs to write about her internship to attain college credit because she has learned so little.
“Basically, I sit and enter data all day,” said Stephanie, whose internship is university-affiliated. “I’m not learning anything amazing, and I haven’t done anything but enter the same kind of data over and over.”
Megan O’Rourke, the internship coordinator for the University Career Center, stressed the importance of the learning experience in an internship and said the center focuses on ensuring all students have a positive experience.
“The student must be learning about the industry and the organization and not just working as an administrative assistant,” O’Rourke said, describing the Career Center’s standards for posting internships. “There also needs to be regular supervision and mentoring.”
O’Rourke also said that, in nearly all situations, to receive credit for an internship, the student and employer must sign a learning contract outlining the student’s role in the company and what he or she will get out of it.
While the university is making an effort to stop illegal internships, O’Rourke said, problem companies are difficult to track partially because many students are too afraid to step forward for fear of being “blacklisted” in their field or are willing to do anything to boost their resumé.
“Even though I really didn’t like the job and wasn’t learning anything, I knew it would help my resumé and give me references for the future, so I stuck with it anyway,” Farrell said.
farrell at umdbk dot com
