This 75-page study, based on data from 1,140 full time students at 4-year colleges in the United States, furnishes a highly detailed dataset on how many internships American college students are taking, what percentage are paid or unpaid, and how students evaluate the internship experience. Increasingly, college students pinpoint internships as a key factor in employment competitiveness, and this report gives college administrators the statistical firepower to determine just what students think of their internships and how they might better satisfy them. As accreditation agencies, trustees, state government and other influential actors in higher education increasingly focus on outcomes, internships have become a critical part of the higher education experience.
The report gives detailed and separate data on what students think of their internship remuneration (if any), how much they enjoyed the internship experience, how much they think it helped them to develop valuable contacts and how they feel that their internship experiences will be viewed by future potential employers.
Data in the report is broken out by sixteen variables including but not limited to year of student class standing, age, gender, general academic subject major or intended major, SAT/ACT scores, college grades, public or private college, type of college by general Carnegie class and many other characteristics.
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:
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Students in their senior year had had a mean college-career total of 1.28 internships per student.
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For all students in the sample, students from private colleges had considerably more total internships than those from public colleges, a mean of 0.86 vs. 0.59.
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By a ratio of 5:1 those in the A and B grade ranges were happier than those in the C grade range with the level of compensation provided by their internships.
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Men were more likely than women to have paid internships; for men, 26.99% had paid internships while 23.91% had unpaid internships. For women, 0nly 18.49% had paid internships and 26.99%, unpaid ones.