The Writing on the Wall: Business pulls the wool over our educated eyes
As well-dressed slave laborers, unpaid summer interns learn the high cost of working for free
By Brian Goodman, opinion editor
Posted on August 28, 2006

Whether or not one is excited about the upcoming academic year, 16 weeks of tests, textbooks and tiredness is hardly a break. But for the many of us fresh out of unpaid summer internships, the familiarity of college — and the ability to work for somewhat fair compensation — is an utter reprieve.

The unpaid internship has become a rite of passage for American college students. Beyond the insatiable need we upperclassmen feel to pad our often meager résumés with documented proof of real-world competence and experience, many majors are beginning to require some form of internship for graduation. And the more prestigious or weighty the organization, the less likely they will offer interns compensation.

As a result, there are a precious few of us who can successfully take the unpaid positions we are increasingly told that we need. For starters, labor laws stipulate that we must receive college credit if we do not receive a stipend; otherwise it would amount to slave labor, and in our advanced society slave labor is reserved exclusively for Latino immigrants. If the internship is taken over the summer — far easier than finagling a credit-bearing internship during the academic year — universities must administer summer credit. And we all know schools don’t hand out credits for free. At James Madison University, where out-of-state summer tuition borders $500 per credit, an internship can cost more than a semester’s worth of rent.

If paying an unrelated third party for the privilege of working for free isn’t enough, there is the little problem of living expenses. A good number of valuable internships are in high-profile but high-priced metropolitan areas like New York and Washington, D.C. Commuting alone can cost over $10 a day, rent is often downright oppressive and one can only eat so much ramen and peanut butter.

When the dust settles, a two-month unpaid internship in a major metropolitan area can easily cost $3,000 to $5,000. Many students must therefore rely on Mommy and Daddy to float them financially for the duration of the job, which many success-smitten parents are willing to do; that is, assuming they can.

But for those who need loans to get through college — two-thirds of students, according to The New York Times — burdensome economic realities can easily disqualify well-qualified undergraduates from unpaid internships. There are only so many of us who can spend the summer working for free.

At its core, the unpaid internship is classic class warfare, the underhanded, subtle gate-keeping mechanism that got Karl Marx so riled up. Only the bourgeoisie, or the children of the bourgeoisie, can afford the economic excesses of the unpaid internship. If internships are really required for post-college success, only those for whom such excess is viable will be successful.

If in these circumstances it is clear who the losers are, it is a bit harder to identify the true winners. After all, we interns are the ones receiving résumé padding and “experience.” But it is the businesses that accept unpaid interns, more than the interns themselves, who walk away with the most gained. Writing for The New York Times, Anya Kamenetz calculated that unpaid interns, at the current minimum wage rate, save businesses nearly $124 million a year.

Under our very noses, unpaid internships have become a vital part of undergraduate education. Corporate America, out of the kindness of their hearts, offer to take hundreds of thousands of desperate college kids on as glorified volunteers, providing a gateway to future careers for those who can afford to open it. Meanwhile, the companies receive free labor and colleges get paid for the privilege. Maybe Marx was on to something.

Brian Goodman is a senior communications major.