Unpaid Internship

If you're able to do unpaid internship, you're PRIVILEGED

If you're offering unpaid internship, you're HYPOCRITE (maybe lack of a better word)

It's simple. By offering unpaid internship, you're creating an invisible or maybe visible line to weed out applicants who won't work for free. In a random conversation, someone told me Washington DC is a slave city. It's not just for unpaid internships, but also work-salary ratio compared to other professions.

By doing as such, you're still continuing and propagating a culture which would further continue to divide society by class than actually break it. It can be considered a form of nepotism as you're giving preferential treatment to people who are able to work for free.

Academic credit is often cited by these institutions as a turnaround for unpaid work. But, how many institutions offer academic credit? Not all institutions do it. Very few indeed. Graduate school at Elliott doesn't offer academic credit and I'm unsure about undergraduate studies. And, it's simple math for them.

1 credit of graduate studies cost ~$1900. If they're offering academic credit, every student starts opting for unpaid work (maybe even students who previously hasn't considered), and the revenue for university would reduce drastically. Unfortunately, money is more important for universities than support practical skills of students. But, they're not to blame entirely as they offer scholarships and also grants for unpaid internships (not every unpaid intern receives a grant and it's definitely less than minimum wage). But, the 'grants solution' is at the end of a problem. When this problem can be solved at the source, why do you want to keep it at the end?

If work places offer paid internships (even at minimum wage, well that's the most which is being given by paid institutions too), then they get to access a larger pool of talent. It will improve the outcomes of the organization. Secondly, as educational institutions need not offer grants or academic credits, the tuition rates decreases for students. So, over here, students definitely benefit from paid internships and reduced fees. And, the transfer of revenue loss would be from educational institutions to these unpaid organizations. But, I guess we don't care enough about merit of the student than their privilege to work for free. So, this system of grants-unpaid internship continues with mediocre (sorry for calling mediocre, but you already excluded certain section of people and you can't be 100% certain that you got the best talent and I'm not offending any person who takes up unpaid work) people in their organization.

A reason often cited by hiring professionals and managers is they had to go through the same method and hardships to get to where they are. So, it's not a problem for the current generation to do the same. But, it's wrong from the basic point itself. Just because you suffered hardship, you shouldn't prefer the same to happen to others. You should hope and work for the betterment of future generation, and changes can happen in small ways like not offering unpaid internship. As much as you'd want your child to have a better future, you should consider the same for any student who comes to you for a job.

This has snowball effect and eventually a person with more experience (whether paid or unpaid) has higher chances of getting another opportunity and eventually the divide widens to the extent of earning salary, promotions, social and professional network, and maybe overall life.

Development is not necessarily increase in GDP or salary. Contrarily, maybe decrease in fees and revenues of organizations could hit a small dent in economic growth of the country. But, that's totally okay. In simple words, development is you being better than what you were yesterday. And, developed countries need that too. Not just developing countries. Because it's not the country which needs development, but people living in the country.

So, how to change? Simple

Organizations - DON'T offer unpaid internships. Also if you pay, you can demand better work from interns and it improves overall quality.

Students - don't take unpaid internships (even privileged students if you truly care about your fellow students and want to proudly say that you got an offer when the opportunity was equally open to everyone)

Institutions - advocate for paid internships and reduce your fees accordingly. Student loans and debt is more of a nightmare than actually working for free.

Not just above groups, but anyone who cares about the future of the world has to advocate for this concern. It impacts your overall life, now and in the future.