Isiaha, 20, depends on summer internships to gain technical laboratory skills in microbiology, a subject for which there is no department at his college, but that he plans to study in graduate school. Because he relies on his college for an on-campus job, housing, and medical coverage, when his internship was canceled as a result of COVID-19, all of his plans unraveled. “The summer is an unknown,” he tells Teen Vogue. “For me, that could mean homelessness, and that is terrifying.”
Internships are now considered a hallmark of the young adult experience, setting students up to thrive in post-college work. Studies have posited that student internships can lead to lower unemployment and higher wages, and a 2017 report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ Center for Career Development and Acquisition found that internships can help hone career direction and develop workplace connections that enhance employability. A 2017 study from Gallup noted that those who had a relevant job or internship in school were twice as likely to find a job after graduation. But internships also represent one of the most significant equity gaps in young adulthood: Because so many internships are unpaid, or for college credit only, a student has to have another source of income or financial support to afford working for free, or to pay school tuition in order to do that work and have it count. With internship and fellowship programs opting to cancel summer opportunities due to COVID-19, some students have found themselves in the precarious position of filing for unemployment as they stare down graduation.
“It's an act of survival, with the hope of furthering our CV only a convenient afterthought,” Isiaha says. He explains he’d spent “hundreds of hours” searching for and applying to funded internships that provide housing. Aida, a 22-year-old recent college graduate, said she was laid off from her current magazine internship because of COVID-19-related budget cuts. She says her internships for the summer were also canceled. “I am an only child to two older, low-income, immigrant parents who I’m lucky enough to have help me, but [they] rely on my help as well,” she tells Teen Vogue. “I’m extremely worried about the state of things at the moment.”
Because paid internships are so crucial to students being able to financially support themselves and gaining experience employers believe they need to successfully enter the workforce after graduating, it’s daunting to consider the implications of employers canceling these programs altogether. As reported by Business Insider on March 28, some organizations and major corporations have already canceled summer internships.
Clarissa, 22, recently found out that the restaurant where she works as a server to pay her bills and save for post-graduation relocation would be closing indefinitely as a result of the pandemic. So she asked her internship at a tech start-up if she could continue unpaid, because she felt she needed the experience. “I believe that the experience will give me a better chance of finding a job in the field after this crisis is over,” she explains. The restaurant, she says, sent employees a link to apply for unemployment.
According to the New York Times, college students will not receive a check from the recently passed stimulus plan if they are claimed as a dependent on a tax return (typically, the Times notes, students under age 24 are considered dependents if a parent pays for at least half of their expenses).
While many college students won't be receiving a stimulus payment, they may have already been impacted by COVID-19 layoffs, including students like Clarissa. A recent Pew Research Center report found that of the 19.3 million workers ages 16 to 24, almost half are employed in service industries. These younger workers comprise about 24% of "employment in higher-risk industries overall," which the report says are facing a high likelihood of closure in areas with substantial COVID-19 cases.
For young adults who have already lost income, like a paid internship, work-study job, or other part-time job, or who will be graduating and beginning job searches, it's unsettling. “I no longer know my options or how to prepare," Clarissa says. "I fear that this situation will greatly impact the college class of 2020 as it relates to career security and financial stability.”
As campuses pivot to remote learning and internship and fellowship programs struggle to find their footing, Carlos Mark Vera, cofounder of Pay Our Interns, is working to provide answers. Pay Our Interns (which pushed Congress to allocate $30 million for compensation for congressional interns, but whose work now also encompasses government, nonprofit, and for-profit internships) just launched the #SaveInternships campaign, based on the group's estimate that almost one million internships will be canceled this summer as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. With a fund to give stipends to qualified applicants and a partnership with remote internship platform Symba to help companies avoid canceling programs altogether, #SaveInternships was founded after Pay Our Interns started hearing from students about the impact of schools closing. “Some interns, they live in the dorms and they intern in a certain city,” Vera tells Teen Vogue. “And since the school was closed, the internship sites were just terminating them. And so we were hearing these stories and stories, and it's heartbreaking, right?”
Vera sees the campaign’s approach as two-pronged: beneficial to interns, small businesses, and nonprofits, and also larger corporations grappling with the repercussions of the pandemic. “By paying an intern, first they get a paycheck, [then] they can pay their own bills; second, they can gain experience; third, they can actually provide support for some of these nonprofits that a lot of communities rely on,” Vera says. The pledge with Symba, which offers structured, task-based remote internship software, helps larger organizations reconsider their options before shuttering their programs, he says.
Vera explains that internships are still often perceived as getting coffee and scanning documents, but they’re actually “a vehicle that our generation uses to pay bills.” Many college students rely on them for much-needed funds and work experience. “There’s a lot of first-generation college students that are in college and they still send paychecks back home,” Vera adds. “So without having the income, you know, you really are screwing an entire generation.”
Vera encourages larger companies and organizations that may not be seeing the same financial hits as smaller nonprofits and businesses to keep investing in talent, including exploring options for remote work. He also encourages young people who have been impacted to share their stories to force a response from companies and lawmakers. “That's when you have collective action,” Vera explains. “Actually, not even just for our initiative, but potential legislation.”
“There are a lot of unknowns,” Vera says, noting that this outbreak has shown us just how much is out of our hands. “But I think one thing that we can make an impact in is ensuring that our generation has the opportunities to thrive.”
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: The Coronavirus Pandemic Demonstrates the Failures of Capitalism
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