Unpaid internships are pretty explicit about what they are. 

In exchange for no pay, workers will complete tasks that, hopefully, will be beneficial to enhancing their future careers.

In addition to not getting paid, applicants have to compete with other eager college students for the opportunity. People go through all of this trouble just to improve their chances for employment.

Often, no room and board provided, so essentially what happens is that many students end up paying to work for free.

This creates an unlevel playing field in times of financial hardship. One that becomes especially apparent during an economic downturn, where many cannot afford to work for no pay, let alone pay for that experience.

Those who are unable to complete an internship may not be as appealing to employers as those who do. 

As a university, that would like to make its graduates as marketable as possible, it’s perhaps time for OU to step in and help.

Waive the fee for credits that are required for most unpaid internships so that students can have as much field experience as possible.

According to OU Career Services, “most companies now expect students to have at least one internship experience, preferably two.”

Internship coordinators argue that because unpaid internships provide a hands-on skill set not found in a classroom, they are giving away free education.

It becomes far from free when you figure in the amount of money spent on getting to the internship site, not to mention the possible loss of income by those who could be working at paying jobs.

Some internship seekers insist that there is absolutely no place for unpaid internships and that labor laws set in place things like minimum wage and maximum workable hours.

Ironically enough, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics does not have any statistics regarding this type of labor.

The New York Times spoke to people who were asked to complete assignments like cleaning and other tedious tasks that had no relevance to their career path. They felt that it was both a waste of time and resources. 

The Times business report explored the ethics of those practices and the legality of them.

States such as Oregon and California have taken steps toward advocating for change and the federal Labor Department is pushing more regulation, The Times reported.

Despite steps in a positive direction when it comes to legality, does that still make unpaid internships elitist? 

Certainly.

Maybe you think that people who choose to do this are stupid to do so much for what seems like so little return. Often times, though, it is not a choice.

Unpaid internship sites may offer college credit in exchange for work as an even agreement. However, those credits must be paid for.

For instance, many Oakland University degree programs require an internship be completed as either part of its degree requirements or as a program’s single capstone experience.

Programs that require this hands-on experience — or at least practically do — include journalism, elementary and secondary education, environmental science, human resource development and occupational safety and health.

Though there are paying internships are out there, most will require previous internship experience. 

Those experiences are non-paying and many sites will only give them to those in the position of being able to earn college credits.

So in order to have a competitive resume filled with internships, college students are probably likely to pay money somewhere down the line for it.

While it’s the reality of the current job situation, OU should not burden students with additional costs.