Internships Abroad: Unpaid, With a $10,000 Price Tag
By Steven Greenhouse, NY Times, Feb. 5, 2015
Picture this: A summer behind the scenes at the Edinburgh Art Festival, helping set up a show and banquet, managing a guest list and communicating with artists and agents, plus an excursion to London and a tour of a Scotch distillery and 12th-century castle.
That was Darius Francis’ internship last summer. He loved it. Who wouldn’t?
“Anytime I talk to anyone about this experience, they say, ‘Wow, tell me about that,’ “ said Mr. Francis, a senior majoring in public relations at Eastern Illinois University.
The only thing is, his 10 weeks cost more than $16,000, including $7,300 to the program provider, Panrimo, and $6,000 to Eastern Illinois for the nine credit hours earned through the internship. Mr. Francis was able to cobble together some financial help: a $6,000 federal loan and $3,800 in scholarships from the university’s study abroad office, Panrimo and a local nonprofit. His parents paid the rest.
Demand for internships abroad has surged as students–and just as important, their parents–grow ever more worried about their job prospects after graduation and seek a foothold in a world that values global experience.
“The hottest growth area in the whole international education area” is how Cheryl Matherly, vice provost for global education at the University of Tulsa, describes internships. “It’s a way to really make the international experience more relevant.”
There is no good data over time, but according to the Institute of International Education, almost 20,500 Americans participated in for-credit internships in 2012-13, while about 15,000 interned, worked or volunteered abroad for no credit.
For students, setting up an internship with an employer thousands of miles away is no easy feat. Seizing an opportunity, hundreds of program providers have jumped into the field, adding numerous bells and whistles and a steep price tag.
GoAbroad.com, which offers information on international education, lists some 3,200 internships, usually unpaid, put together by over 700 providers.
Most providers are for-profit companies, while some are educational nonprofit organizations. In addition, more and more universities, including Columbia, Georgia Tech, Rice, Yale and the University of Southern California, are arranging internships for their students, in part to keep costs down.
Some experts complain that the internships give wealthy students an unfair leg up in the job market. “Expensive overseas internships are yet another way that the internship economy reinforces privilege, making the once unthinkable seem almost normal–people paying thousands of dollars to work,” said Ross Perlin, the author of “Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy.”
But to many students and parents, even to families like the Francises, for whom the expenditure was a stretch, the benefits–the on-the-job learning and exposure to another culture–justify the cost. In a 2012 survey by the Institute for the International Education of Students, known as I.E.S. Abroad, 84 percent of their alumni said the experience had helped them build job skills; 89 percent reported getting a job within six months of graduation.
Emily Merson, co-founder and C.E.O. of Global Experiences, a 13-year-old company that arranges internships in Dublin, London, Shanghai and other cities, argues that internships are more of an equalizer than study-abroad programs. “We’ve seen so many people do internships who would otherwise not study abroad because it’s too expensive,” Ms. Merson said. “A lot of students think, ‘An international internship is a really good idea, and I’m going to make sure I can afford it.’ “ She added: “We’re seeing proportionally far more first-generation college students doing internships abroad than doing study abroad, because it’s such a good strategic choice and such a good return on investment.”
Sam Thayer, a 2011 graduate of Bucknell, was eager to combine an overseas experience with work, and signed up with Dream Careers, whose website boasts “Over 3,000 Employers. 30+ Industries. 5,000+ Internships.” He made known his love of sports and interest in marketing, and was connected with Octagon, a leading sports marketing company in London. An Octagon executive interviewed him by phone, and they agreed it was a good fit.
At Octagon, Mr. Thayer helped develop marketing strategies for MasterCard and Cadbury and worked with account managers on making pitches. “They weren’t just sticking me in a corner, giving me busy work,” said Mr. Thayer, now an account executive at the 360i advertising agency.
Dream Careers’ 70 interns in London lived in a housing complex near Kings Cross, two to a room. They had weekend outings to Stonehenge, Bath and Paris. As might be expected, with a drinking age of 18, some plunged into the pub scene. “But everyone took their work very seriously,” Mr. Thayer said.
“When you are an entry-level kid coming out of a liberal arts college, you really need something in your résumé that jumps off the page,” he continued. “For me, to say that I worked at an international company in an international city, that’s something that was always interesting. In every job interview I had, that was discussed.”
Hardly any international internships are paid. Mallory Meiser, community and brand manager at the website GoOverseas.com, explains why: “Most countries have regulations for foreign students saying, ‘You have to work for free or not at all.’ China doesn’t want a Chinese company paying American kids to do what Chinese kids can do.” (The phenomenon of unpaid internships does not plague American students alone; Europeans and Asians do them as well.)
Ms. Meiser acknowledges that cost is an obvious issue. “There’s a very small percentage of students who can afford it, who can afford to work for free in London for three months,” she said. “These companies provide a great opportunity and they charge for it.”
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