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Should colleges charge for academic credit earned from unpaid internships?
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Check My Assignment!Internships have become an integral part of the college experience, with some schools requiring students to complete at least one internship before they graduate into the working world, where employers increasingly are giving preference to candidates with experience.Although students often appreciate the advantage that internships provide – andcan reap the beneFts later as they seek employment – some are pushing backagainst the long-standing college practice of charging tuition for the creditsstudents earn through unpaid internships. Students at several schools arebeginning to allege publicly that colleges are proFting from their free labor,collecting money from families already stretched by the high cost of highereducation while being spared the expense of providing instruction.The con±ict is emerging from a fundamental debate about the future of higher education: Colleges increasingly are seeking to provide career-oriented opportunities for students, saying that internships are an invaluable part of their programs and require direct faculty supervision. Students say that paying to work is an outdated and unfair model, especially when they are poised to graduate with the heavy burden of student-loan debt.‘‘This is a huge ethical issue for universities that they are sneaking under the rug,’’ said David Yamada, director of the New Workplace Institute at Su²olk University Law School in Boston. ‘‘In this era of skyrocketing student debt, the fact that students are probably having to borrow money to do an internship for free is appalling.’’Colleges generally make no distinction between internship programs and anyother courses that come with a tuition bill, saying that academic internshipsrequire costly faculty work.‘‘It would be great if we could provide academic supervision in a way that didn’t cost the institution anything, but there isn’t,’’ said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education. ‘‘If faculty are involved, somebody has to pay for the cost of having them there. It is a Fnancial issue.’’Joshua Siegel does not buy that argument. The Seton Hall University senior isamong a group of students petitioning the school in South Orange, New Jersey,to stop charging for internship credits.‘‘It’s unfortunate that the school, which is not providing the service, not facilitating the process, not su²ering any strain on its resources, feels it is owed compensation for me performing a function on my own,’’ Siegel said.Despite having a summer internship at a charity, Siegel, 21, must complete others sanctioned by the university to get his bachelor’s degree in diplomacy. Seton Hall o³cials say Siegel can opt out of the requirement by picking up another class, but he says that option does nothing to resolve the underlying problem: a lack of money.To keep a handle on costs, Siegel has been taking 18 credits a semester since switching his major from history to diplomacy. He Fgured that a full load of classes would help him avoid spending an extra year in school. But Siegel still has a three-credit internship hanging over his head, at a tuition cost of about $3,000.‘‘It’s an undue Fnancial burden,’’ Siegel said. ‘‘Even if I opt out, I’m still payingmoney either way. I’ve taken all the classes in my major, so I’d have to just takeany class that Fts in my schedule.’’Seton Hall o³cials say they understand that students are concerned about costs but that the school must cover the expense of running internship courses.‘‘These courses are an extension of the classroom,’’ said Joan Guetti, senior associate provost at Seton Hall. ‘‘´aculty have to set up the internships, the hours, the assignments – papers, journal entries or presentations. There’s a lot more to this than students see.’’´our majors at Seton Hall have internship requirements, and the requirement is under consideration for several other majors, according to Reesa Greenwald, director of the school’s career center. Seton Hall students can avoid additional
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charges by taking the internship courses during the school year, when fat-rate tuition is charged. But that rate does not apply in the summer, an optimal time For undertaking internships.Seton Hall is proud oF integrating work experience into the curriculum, which gives students an edge in the job market, Greenwald said. Eighty-eight percent oF the students in the Class oF 2015 were employed in ±elds related to their majors within six months oF graduating, she said.‘‘Our goal is to help students ±nd a satisFying career, a lucrative career, whenthey leave us,’’ Greenwald said.Anthony Carnevale, director and research proFessor at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the WorkForce, said colleges are responding to employers’ demands that graduates have ‘‘real-world’’ experience.Employers place a premium on graduates with internships on their résumés, according to the Georgetown center. Starting salaries For graduates with paid internships average about $52,000, compared with $37,000 For t
