Ross Perlin's new book Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy?removes the comedy from the tableau of the keen,?fresh-faced intern, set on changing the world yet?so far struggling to change even the toner in the office copy machine. Perlin sees America's millions of interns as a largely illegal army providing menial labor on which government agencies, private companies, and nonprofits rely and for which individual interns earn little to no money or worthwhile experience.
Perlin makes his case in dense chapters exploring the history (short), legality (dubious), and economics (all screwed up) of modern internships. His villains are many and varied. Higher education is one.
Perlin writes about the for-credit internship, which for many universities ?form a significant revenue stream.? Gina Neff, a professor at the University of Washington, tells Perlin, ?It's a dirty little secret? that internships are ?a very cheap way to provide credits . . . cynically, a budget balance? for schools. When a college offers credit to, say, a communications student who interns at a local PR firm, it is able to?pocket tuition dollars without providing any service. In fact, Neff knows of many UW students who have interned at just such a place: ?I read the reports of what students do at this [PR] firm and it makes me cry [a bit dramatic, but whatever]. Here the students are paying good money?paying for four or five credits a quarter to work for this group?and they're being told to stuff envelopes or pass out flyers on the street.? She continues: ?It's lawbreaking?it's not what an internship's supposed to be?and unfortunately there are a lot of those out there.?
Many employers that advertise internships now require that their interns receive academic credit for the experience. They do this in order to hide what is essentially an illegal use of unpaid labor behind a college's imprimatur. By demanding that interns get course credit for making coffee and photocopies, or?handing out flyers, or whatever, employers are able to pass off drudgery-filled positions as somehow ?educational.? Perlin writes that
in the most miserable, increasingly common scenario, employers use the credits in an attempt to legitimize illegal internships while universities charge for them and provide little in return, and interns are simply stuck running after them, paying thousand of dollars for the privilege of working for free.
Some colleges won't do it. James Hughes, an economics professor at Bates College, told the Chronicle of Higher Education about his department's refusal to grant credit for internships of improbable worth, ?We're quite adamant about our refusal to play along.? He asks, ?Why is it that we have to evaluate this experience, just so some multibillion-dollar bank can avoid paying $7.50 an hour?? Yet few schools take the?James Hughes?tack. Most are quite happy to tell a student, over and over, that internships on his r?sum? make?him more likely to be hired after graduation?an idea that employers are also quite happy to foster and promote.