Government upaid internships are different, and allowed.
@nohelicopter Did your D start at the internship yet? If so, how is it?
This seems simple to me. You pay tuition to college to learn stuff. You do an internship to learn stuff. If they pay you, that’s a bonus. If they don’t you still learn stuff. For free. So, if you really don’t need the money, learn stuff!
Unlike for a college education, there’s no FA for poor kids for internships. Unpaid internships slam closed the opportunity door for poor students.
So much for people’s sympathy here for low SES kids…
…unless the kid attends a school with funding for unpaid internships. My D has such funding for her unpaid internship this summer.
Why should non-profit schools support/subsidize for-profit businesses?
For the experience, I assume. And i suppose they vet the internships to be sure they’re educational and not exploiting free labor.
D’s internship is at a nonprofit and her school only funds “Internships with nonprofit organizations, government, education organizations, and arts and communications are eligible for funding.”
…but different schools have different rules. Denison, for instance doesn’t have the non-profit requirement. http://denison.edu/feature/du-investing-in-more-internships-and-new-academic-programs
Columbia’s doesn’t say nonprofit either:
https://www.careereducation.columbia.edu/findajob/howtointernship/alumni
Internship update- D took the ‘job’. She found a cheap safe student sublet near U of Chicago… She started Tuesday. After the first day at work said "I am going to learn a lot because there is so much I don’t know’ That phrase alone is worth the price of the summer. I think. She does seem to be getting lots of support from one of the principals and it sounds like she is doing some interesting research. If nothing else, living in the city, with little money, a crummy shower and no A/C will be an educational experience. Hard to watch. Am sending a care package tomorrow. D noted that she is the only intern brownbagging her lunch (to save money) Interesting.
For the record, this internship opportunity was posted after her school’s deadline for internship support, so she could have gotten some reimbursement for travel and housing had she been able to apply on time. Still, I think GMTplus7 makes a good point.
It’s my understanding that the rules about unpaid internships [and the six guidelines] apply only IF the employer is subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act [FLSA]. A business with less than $500,000 in gross [not net] sales is not subject to the FLSA. The small start-up the OP’s daughter might work at could very well be exempt from the FLSA at this point. One can still debate the value of an unpaid internship [I’ve spoken in favor of such internships at non-profits & government agencies on another thread], but this offer might be perfectly legal.
Same here. Our daughter has an “unpaid” gig this summer. Commuting from home. We had to pay $800 for the single credit she earned but she applied for and received a grant for the $800 plus another $400 to cover her mileage for the summer.
Kiddo had a nonpaying, part-time internship at a non-profit this Spring. The director liked the work kiddo did and carved out some funds for a paying gig going forward.
I did not encourage either of my children to seek out or accept unpaid internships. I think you have to look at the offer very hard and determine if it is in fact an opportunity. If you are getting college credit for it that’s one thing - I am all for experiential learning. Or if the internship is in your major area of study and will enhance your resume or allow you to acquire real skills, then it can make some sense. However what you actually will be doing is hard to ascertain before beginning the job.
My D was offered an unpaid internship the summer after her senior year in high school at a tech start-up. She was thrilled - I was not. It was nowhere near our home and required her to find/fund housing along with transportation costs and basic living expenses. The company’s online presence was unimpressive as was the product they were attempting to market. It was early enough in the Spring that I urged her to “wait” and keep looking for other opportunities.
She kept looking around and found another internship at a start-up that was 25 minutes from our home. The pay was minimal - no more than a couple hundred dollars per week - but it covered her lunches, transportation and gave her some pocket money for the summer. It ended up being a good experience for her but not sure she acquired any career altering skills. Although she and another intern did a complete re-design of the company’s website and produced some marketing materials that I thought were an improvement over what they had.
My objective with both my children is for them to value themselves in the marketplace. I think in some instances what they receive in return for their contribution to an organization can be expressed in non-monetary forms. But I think they need to look really hard at that opportunity in order to evaluate it in terms of personal value.
In response to post #68 by @oldfort , the US Attorney unpaid internships still exist.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/wanted-federal-prosecutors-willing-free-183512851.html
In the article:
D2 will be a paralegal at a NY US Attorney’s office in a highly sought after division. No matter how “prestigious” it is perceived to be, she would not be working there without pay.
@doschicos - same happened to us. My 15 year old is interning at a small start-up this summer. After the first week the boss said she was better than some of her employees an offered to pay her for the rest of the summer. Big confidence boost to my daughter and a good introduction to work.
That’s awesome, @CValle, especially at the age of 15! Kudos to your daughter and how great to learn such a wonderful lesson through positive rewards at such a young age.
I really recommend looking at small start-ups. She had been involved in everything - meetings, designing decisions, research. It is a “all hands on deck” kind of a place and I think that is a great chance for a kid to really get involved.
D has been working an unpaid internship. For the most part it seems pretty good, although at one point they had her answering the phone like a receptionist (not what the internship is about). She is supposed to be getting credit, but she never actually signed up for a credit.
The opinion pages of the NYT had some thoughts on this today:
And today, an article in the WSJ showing that unpaid interns are less likely to get job offers than paid ones…