How to Make “Intern Nation” Work for Low-Income Kids
cross-posted at the Washington Post
I recently picked up Ross Perlin's "Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy." The book is a scathing critique of intern culture, which Perlin indicts as "unethical" and "illegal" for all the expected reasons: low and middle-income students don't have equal access to the best internships; many internships don't provide real learning opportunities; and internships have replaced good, paid, entry-level jobs at many companies and non-profit organizations.
Where I take issue with Perlin is in his solution to these problems: He proposes an "Intern Bill of Rights" that would require employers to pay almost all interns at least minimum wage. This would most certainly result in fewer internships, when what we really need to equalize opportunity are more internships organized through the school system. Every high school, community college, and university student in America should be required to complete several internships for credit, and should be given time during the school day and year to intern.
There are loads of problems with the majority of current internship-for-credit schemes. First, they are largely confined to four-year colleges and universities, and so exclude the neediest young Americans, those who don’t proceed beyond high school or community college. Second, colleges often require classroom hours in addition