Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this editorial do not represent the Minnesota Daily’s newsroom and are not necessarily representative of any individual on the Opinions Desk. This piece has been agreed upon for publication by a majority vote of all members of the Daily’s Opinions Desk.

Come summertime, many undergraduate students are left with choices to make about how best their three months might be spent. Should you take summer classes, work a summer job or look for an internship? 

There are several factors to consider with these decisions. What is going to allow you to make the most money? What is going to look the best on your resume? What experience is going to help you the most in your post-college career? 

In today’s job market, it seems like every employer requires you to have some internship experience in your desired position, but this is easier said than done. Internships are competitive and hard to come by. On top of that, compensation is not always guaranteed. 

Many students resort to unpaid internships to get that coveted experience. Instead of being paid for their time and labor in money, they are paid in said experience. 

But how is this allowed? How are these even legal? 

Unpaid internships are protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Under the FLSA, all “for-profit” employers are required to provide their employees with monetary compensation. However, unpaid internships exist within a loophole in the FLSA — interns are not always considered employees.

Whether interns are considered employees or not is determined by the FLSA’s primary beneficiary test. Several factors determine the result, but the test is designed to measure who is the primary beneficiary of the working relationship, the intern or the employer. 

If the intern is decided to be the primary beneficiary, they are not required to be paid, since they are said to be paid in educational and experiential benefits. 

However, there is no clear-cut definition of benefits, and there is no one rule to determine whether or not this is fair and justified compensation to these interns.

Regardless of the benefits they are receiving, many interns still need to be able to pay rent and buy groceries. Life does not pause for unpaid internships. 

Students with familial support or other means to provide for themselves may be able to partake in these learning opportunities, but unpaid internships are not an option for everyone.

At the University of Minnesota, there are several scholarships available to students pursuing these kinds of opportunities, provided both by colleges and outside donors. These scholarships fill in the gap for students who may not have the means to work unpaid for an entire summer. 

In the summer of 2023, Gurasis Singh, a third-year entrepreneurship and political science major,  received the Carlson School of Management Unpaid Internship Grant for his unpaid internship within the Rochester Public School District as a curriculum strategy and design intern. 

The grant was worth $6,500 for the summer and is offered to one student each year.

Singh’s internship was unique in that he designed it and pitched it to his employer himself, creating a new position for himself that did not exist before. Because of his unique combination of majors and interests, Singh knew that this opportunity was not something he would come across easily, which is what prompted him to take it. 

“I was willing to do it unpaid,” Singh said. “Obviously, I’m a college student. It’s not easy to pay for everything. And I would say being in Carlson, where some of my peers were getting internships where all they did was shadow and they would get paid like $30 an hour, it was a little upsetting. But, I knew I wanted to prioritize my education, my experience and learning more than anything else.”

The Carlson Unpaid Internship Grant allowed Singh to take full advantage of this opportunity and removed some financial stress. 

“I knew that I needed to be funding myself, or at least saving,” Singh said. “If I wanted to do grad school, or if I wanted to do other opportunities, I would need the money for it. The grant was definitely really rewarding and motivating for my experience over the summer.”

Singh’s internship was part-time, allowing him to work several hours in his part-time job at a supermarket, outside of the unpaid work he was already doing. Singh added that other public sector internships can often become unethical because of how they exploit the cheap labor students provide.

“My peers that end up in some of these positions are doing very redundant work just so that they can put it on their resume, which is, I think, a little bit unfair,” Singh said. “It’s really kind of an issue in the public sector, wanting cheap labor and having students do it by offering them the incentive of a title.”

It would be unfair to say unpaid internships provide students with nothing, but there are a lot of barriers that come with the ability to accept these opportunities. 

A person coming from wealth can say yes. A person without, cannot. They may be beneficial, but many unpaid internships are inherently inequitable. 

In order to be ethical, students of all financial backgrounds should be able to take part in these learning opportunities and be compensated for the services they provide, whether by the organization itself or outside scholarships.