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Nickerson PME is one of a growing number of small business owners who feel comfortable offering students an internship experience without financial compensation. It's a model that is becoming increasingly controversial within the higher education community, where career-services professionals say students should be paid at least minimum wage. Complicating matters, some employers ask that the student receive college credit for their work in order to avoid having to pay them, a demand that puts students from low- or middle-income backgrounds at a disadvantage. It means students have to pay their college for that course credit, a cost that can add up to several thousand dollars.
"Increasingly, there are concerns from not just an ethical standpoint, but also potentially a legal standpoint [since] these people are doing work for you and not being compensated for that work," said Manny Contomanolis, director of the career-services office at Rochester Institute of Technology and president-elect of the board of the National Association of Colleges & Employers (NACE). "What are the implications of that, and what kind of message does it send to your own employees and community?" View full story...
"Increasingly, there are concerns from not just an ethical standpoint, but also potentially a legal standpoint [since] these people are doing work for you and not being compensated for that work," said Manny Contomanolis, director of the career-services office at Rochester Institute of Technology and president-elect of the board of the National Association of Colleges & Employers (NACE). "What are the implications of that, and what kind of message does it send to your own employees and community?" View full story...
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Early on in my career I worked for a smaller web company and it was very clear that their interest in interns was to have them do as much work as everyone else for free. It wasn't really interning or training in my opinion, there was no realistic effort to help these students in any way. It was all about saving money.
Even if the internship is valuable, I do feel some sort of small stipend should be provided on a regular basis. A small amount of money for basic travel expenses (such as the bus or train) or food would be greatly appreciated. It doesn't help that most students are taking loans out to go to school to begin with and that these internships actually are an added cost on the student's tuition. Essentially the student is *paying* to work for free. Honestly, not all schools are helpful when trying to choose proper internships either (particularly some tech/vocational schools)... so I feel like issues similar to the one in my first paragraph are simply going to increase.