Internships can play a vital role for students looking to break into a career, but they aren’t always available for all the students who want them. And even when they are, they may not be high quality. Here, Matthew T. Hora, founder of the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Hee Song, a project assistant at the center, discuss the difficulties that students face in securing quality internships. Their insights are based on findings from the center’s latest National Survey of College Internships. The survey drew from data collected from a nationally representative sample of 2,824 students attending four-year colleges and 2,531 students attending two-year colleges. The survey was done in partnership with the Strada Education Foundation.
Are there enough paid internships?
No. Only two out of three internships offer compensation for students at four-year colleges. The situation is worse for students at two-year institutions, where 50% of internships are unpaid.
Paid internships are crucial. They help students pay for costs such as transportation and housing. They also provide legal rights and protections for students as paid employees.
Our data indicates that with only 41% of college seniors having had any internship at all, there are simply not enough positions available in the U.S. labor market to satisfy demand from the nation’s college students. This supply-demand imbalance is evident because of those seniors who did not have an internship: 63% of them had in fact wanted to take one but could not due to a lack of positions, intense competition and personal factors such as a heavy course load.
What difference do internships make?
A well-designed internship can make a big difference in students’ academic development. It can also help determine future career outcomes.
Our data shows that over 70% of the students who completed an internship reported gains in key transferable skills. These include communication, problem-solving and teamwork skills that are valued in both college and the workplace. Additionally, over 80% of these former interns say that the experience helped to expand their professional and social networks, which can lead to new job opportunities and connections.
Other studies have documented that students taking an internship were three times more likely than non-interns to enroll in graduate school. A study in Spain found that former interns were 6.5% more likely to find a job after graduation than classmates who hadn’t had an internship.
Our data also reveals that internships help to clarify students’ career goals and boost their confidence in professional abilities. This is notable given that 80% of students in a recent Inside Higher Ed survey also stated that a college education should prepare them for a career that they truly enjoy.
Internships can play a vital role for students looking to break into a career, but they aren’t always available for all the students who want them. And even when they are, they may not be high quality. Here, Matthew T. Hora, founder of the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Hee Song, a project assistant at the center, discuss the difficulties that students face in securing quality internships. Their insights are based on findings from the center’s latest National Survey of College Internships. The survey drew from data collected from a nationally representative sample of 2,824 students attending four-year colleges and 2,531 students attending two-year colleges. The survey was done in partnership with the Strada Education Foundation.
Are there enough paid internships?
No. Only two out of three internships offer compensation for students at four-year colleges. The situation is worse for students at two-year institutions, where 50% of internships are unpaid.
Paid internships are crucial. They help students pay for costs such as transportation and housing. They also provide legal rights and protections for students as paid employees.
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