Internship Inequalities

Besides the questionable legality of unpaid internships, their popularity entrenches a class system where only the affluent have access to good career opportunities, says the L.A. Times. “Unpaid internships are an ideal system for perpetuating and increasing inequality, just like the creeping credential inflation that requires ever-more schooling, however costly or irrelevant, to land a job. A professor friend complains that at his institution, Harvard dropout Bill Gates couldn’t get hired to teach business. In fact, unpaid internships have become such a staple of privilege that some families pay thousands of dollars to for-profit placement firms to land a spot for their kids, something lower-income families can’t possibly afford.”