As May quickly approaches, students are shifting gears from the academic semester to their summer plans. For some, the summer break between the spring and fall semesters is the time for a summer job, to visit home or travel. For others, like myself and many peers, preparing for the summer has included refreshing my email inbox over and over again, desperately hoping for an internship offer that may or may not come.
In an already complex and difficult to break-in-to job market, internship postings are significantly lower compared to previous years, with an increasing pool of applicants according to a 2025 study.
For many programs of study, it is instilled in students beginning their freshman year that internships are a non-negotiable for obtaining a job post-grad. What used to feel like a stepping stone now feels more like a bottleneck — more competitive, less predictable and increasingly essential.
In an already shallow pool of opportunity, some corporations have shifted to offering unpaid internship opportunities. This system can create more opportunities to gain valuable work experience, however it significantly limits the audience they are seeking applicants from. While the ultimate goal of an internship is to gain experience, unpaid opportunities do not financially support students. Experience cannot pay rent, grocery costs or relocation expenses.
Many interns are not simply observing or shadowing — they are contributing real labor. They write, research, organize, manage and produce work from which companies ultimately benefit. To expect labor without pay is to blur the line between experience and exploitation.
If there is need for additional “employees,” there should be additional room in a company’s budget to fairly compensate those whose work they are profiting off of.
Unpaid internships force many students to opt for paid work unrelated to their interests or fields of study, not because it aligns with their future career goals, but out of financial necessity. Others take on multiple responsibilities at once, balancing unpaid internships with part-time jobs to stay afloat.
This system creates financial barriers for those who have yet to even enter the workforce. Some students have financial support or can afford to work for a summer without pay, while others do not. The result is a system that quietly advantages those with financial stability while limiting access for those without it.
Over time, that disparity shapes entire industries. Fields that rely heavily on unpaid internships and utilize unpaid labor risk becoming less accessible, less diverse and less representative of the communities they serve. What begins as an individual financial decision becomes a broader structural issue.
While some internships offer college credit in lieu of payment, this often puts students in a situation where they are paying to complete their internship duties. For a student receiving three hours of internship course credit, they are often already paying tuition to receive credit towards their degree.
Work is work. And if internships are going to keep serving as a kept gate into the workforce, then they should come with something more than a line on a resume and a post on Linkedin.
They should come with a paycheck.
