SEptember 18, 2024

For college students, a paid internship comes with abundant benefits: A greater chance of securing a college-level job. Increased opportunities to explore careers, develop skills, and grow professional networks. The likelihood of higher pay one year after graduation. 

Yet even though internships impart a strong labor market advantage that tends to persist after graduation, the nation’s supply of internships has not kept up with demand. In a new blog post, Strada’s Laura Love, senior vice president of work-based learning, calls for bold, innovative approaches to creating more paid internships.

Love’s recommendations are inspired by a new report from the Business-Higher Education Forum, “Expanding Internships: Harnessing Employer Insights To Boost Opportunity and Enhance Learning.” The report offers the employer voice — a perspective often missing in the ongoing conversation about access to paid internships. Among the report’s most interesting insights:

• The most influential factor in whether an employer offers internships is the employer’s need for early-career hiring talent. Eighty percent of employer respondents report that developing talent drives their decision to offer internships.
  
  
• What factors discourage employers from starting or expanding internships? Nearly half cited operational challenges such as finding qualified candidates and identifying tasks at the appropriate level for interns.
  
  
• Nearly 1 in 3 employers indicated that some portion of available internships went unfilled in 2023, indicating a need for students and employers to more readily find each other. 

COLLEGE IN HIGH SCHOOL

New data from the U.S. Department of Education shows 2.5 million high school students, or about 16 percent of the nation’s high schoolers, took at least one dual enrollment course in the 2022-23 academic year. Previous research associates dual enrollment with higher rates of college enrollment, persistence, completion, and higher wages after high school. Read more.

WORK-BASED LEARNING FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES

Community college students are more likely to work full-time and balance their studies with family responsibilities. The internships they complete are more likely to be unpaid than the ones secured by their peers at four-year institutions. New America’s new primer on work-based learning at community colleges includes recommendations for better policy and practices. Read More.

MARKETABLE DEGREES, AFFORDABLE PRICES

Washington Monthly’s annual college ranking aims to “combat the cog of mainstream narratives the publication believes are skewing the sector’s reputation,” Alcino Donadel writes for University Business. The nonprofit magazine’s ranking elevates the profile of colleges and universities, including several regional public universities, where students can earn affordable degrees that lead to good incomes and allow them to contribute to society. Read more.

BACK TO SCHOOL: As students head back to campus across the country, Strada celebrates its partners that are working to strengthen the link between education and opportunity.

NEW RESEARCH: In a new Strada-funded report, the American Institutes for Research share what community colleges can learn from the success of workforce development programs.

NEW RESOURCES: The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program and the Community College Research Center released new tools to help community colleges advance student success and improve post-graduation outcomes.