W

hen we founded Affordable 
Michigan 
— 
formerly 
known as the Michigan 
Affordability and Advocacy Coalition 
— we were attempting to address a need 
that is twofold: An institutional need 
for University of Michigan policies that 
accommodate low-income students and 
a social need for low-income students 
to connect with one another and build 
organizational capacity. In our first 
semester as an organization, we have 
worked to pinpoint which aspects of the 
University’s rhetoric on socioeconomic 
inclusion are the most dissonant with 
how its policies and its distribution of 
resources actually impact the student 
population.
This brought us very quickly to 
the 
problems 
surrounding 
unpaid 
and poorly-paid internships, how the 
University provides funding and how 
many students are still left without 
the financial and community support 
they need. For many low-income and/
or first-generation college students, 
the idea of working for free or next-to-
nothing seems completely unintuitive. 
The experience, connections and 
resume bullet points unpaid internships 
provide do not pay the bills. In fact, 
they create bills. When considering the 
cost of working for free, covering living 
expenses and potentially moving to a 
large, expensive city for the duration 
of the internship, the completion of 
an unpaid internship becomes less a 
result of genuine merit and instead 
the product of supplementary funds 
and connections. This is especially 
troublesome considering the value 
entry-level positions in many fields 
place on unpaid internships completed 

while in college. College students (who 
are able to do so) complete these unpaid 
internships year after year because 
getting one’s foot in the door of their 
career is sometimes next to impossible 
without them.
The 
University’s 
$11 
billion 
endowment makes it one of the 
wealthiest universities in the country, 
and 
programs 
such 
as 
the 
LSA 
Opportunity Hub, the Public Service 
Intern Program, the LSA Internship 
Fund and the internship funds that 
virtually every University school and 
department offer, attempt to provide 
both 
the 
institutional 
knowledge 
required to obtain an internship and 
the money necessary to complete 
one. Overall, University students can 
access far more resources than most 
when it comes to this type of support, 
and the scholarships and counselling 
available are a main reason students 
apply to universities like Michigan 
in the first place. However, as unpaid 
internships are one of the main ways 
not-rich students are excluded from 
certain careers, it is important to listen 
to students navigating this process 
to see if their needs are being met. 
We hope the following testimonies 
from Monica Kim, Lydia Murray and 
Zachary Tingley about the difficulties 
they have faced during the unpaid 
internship experiences despite being 
University students help to illuminate 
this problem.

Wednesday, November 21, 2018 // The Statement
2B

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL

BY GRIFFIN ST. ONGE & LAUREN SCHANDEVEL
Foreword

Managing Statement Editor:

Brian Kuang

Deputy Editors:

Colin Beresford

Jennifer Meer

Editor in Chief:

Alexa St. John

Photo Editor:

Amelia Cacchione

Designer:

Elizabeth Bigham

Managing Editor:

Dayton Hare

Copy Editors:

Elise Laarman

Finntan Storer
statement

THE MICHIGAN DAILY | NOVEMBER 21, 2018

