OUR VIEW: Internships don’t mean free labor

In today’s college world, it is next to impossible to get a job after graduation without interning.
   
Internships are extremely profitable for businesses, but at what cost? Companies large and small benefit from the seemingly endless supply of starving college students willing to work for next to nothing in hopes of pleasing people who may one day sign their paychecks.
   
Interns are often left in the cold without a stipend to trade for housing, which would be fine if USU was located in a city like San Diego, where the temperatures each day and night are warm enough for people to sleep on the beach at night.
   
Sure, if we as students still enrolled in classes we could use student loans to make up the difference, but what happens when the internship doesn’t lead to a career and we are left with more debt to pay? What if we go through several internships before landing a starting position?
   
We are left with more debt and less money to pay it with.
   
Don’t get us wrong, internships are great. Many of our staff members have gained valuable knowledge by interning and made useful network connections in the corporate world.
   
But there has to be a balance between exploitation of inexpensive labor and a free ride through college graduation requirements.
   
We would like to see some sort of higher power step in – whether it be God, the government or the economy – and establish labor laws, or even tweak the ones we have now, to make the playing field more even for those whose parents aren’t wealthy enough to pay our way through life. And there should be tweaks made or new laws created to stop business from taking advantage of students scraping by with barely enough cash to pay rent and stock the kitchen cupboards, much less purchase the smart phones and data plans often not technically required for internship positions.
   
Like others undoubtedly do in their fields of expertise, we at The Statesman think of gathering, writing and reporting news as a craft.
   
Dentists rarely fix root canals without charging a fee, nor do architects when building lavish homes. The professor should not be required to educate young minds without monetary compensation, nor should the engineering student be forced to design rockets without any form of tangible reward.