By Joseph Phelan…Opinion Writing 411.01
Interns, like employees, work for companies.
Some companies, however, view interns as serfs.
If you hire interns, pay them.
Not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because students need any help they can receive.
Each year students accept unpaid internships under different circumstances.
Not everybody can afford an unpaid internship, but some schools require internship hours for students meaning internships become mandatory.
Not every student has a paying job at school, so some students rely on summer for money, but because of specific school requirements cannot do that as sufficiently.
Accepting an internship takes away a student’s hours from a paying job.
Consider a student who has a family struggling financially.
That student has to use money that he or she doesn’t readily have for transportation.
Transportation could mean a $91 monthly bus pass or $50 to fill up the tank.
Money that could be spent on books, tuition or food cannot be—and that’s not fair.
Sure, internships provide a great experience for students, and working with a company becomes helps to network, but interns don’t even need that much money.
Minimum wage, $7.25 per hour, would be fine.
Or any form of reimbursement of transportation would suffice.
Anything to replicate a paying job or the cost of transportation would benefit students.
Times are tough, even for lowly interns—so why not help them out.
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