As a student in my final year of university, I am keenly aware of the pressure to accumulate work experience, secure internships, and ultimately land a stable job. In order to gain professional experience, many students take on unpaid work — a decision that may improve their CVs but does not reward the value of their labour, often leaving them out of pocket if they do not receive funding from elsewhere.
The ability to work as an unpaid intern is undeniably a privilege and one that creates a stark disparity between the experience-hungry who can afford to work without pay and those who simply cannot. An even graver inequality, however, has been created by the companies who are charging young people thousands to be matched with unpaid internships abroad, as well as virtual internships.
Questionable Providers
Amongst the several internship placement providers offering this service are Intern Abroad HQ and The Intern Group.
Interns applying via Intern Abroad HQ can expect to pay approximately $2,000 (that’s about £1,523) for a four-week unpaid internship, with the option to work for much longer (up to 24 weeks) but for a higher price. This price varies based on the country one is looking to work in. The fee does include accommodation, but the website states that it does not include flights, travel insurance, visa costs, vaccination checks, criminal background checks or any personal spending costs.
Those applying via The Intern Group, and who successfully pass the interview stage, can expect to incur even higher costs, with most four-week unpaid internships being without accommodation and costing upwards of $3,000 (£2,284). Again, students can choose longer internships and prices depend on duration, destination, and whether they opt for accommodation. Students who complete a 24-week internship in New York and opt for a private room may find themselves paying up to $26,600 (£20,258).
Even young people looking to do virtual internships will find themselves paying hundreds of pounds to work remotely. Intern Abroad HQ charges $1,099 (£837) for the minimum option of 100 hours of work, and $1,799 (£1,370) for the maximum option of 350 hours of work, while The Intern Group charges up to $2,490 (£1,896) for a virtual placement.
Money Worth Paying?
There are students, like Ben and Beth, who believe that the internship schemes they paid to participate in played significant roles in furthering their professional careers. However, what is important to recognise is that a pay-to-work option is financially out of the question for a lot of students.
There are two main grave injustices at play. The first is that interns end up seriously out of pocket because of the pressure to accumulate work experience. The second is that only a minority — those with access to financial support from their families or via grants — can realistically afford to pay to do unpaid labour.
Many who come from economically underprivileged backgrounds are therefore at an automatic disadvantage, because living off zero income for extended periods is simply unfeasible, let alone forking out thousands to gain work experience.
For those who are able to afford these programmes, the experience certainly appears to be an overall positive one. Intern Abroad HQ has a Trustpilot rating of 4.5 and The Intern Group has a rating of 4.8. These companies offer opportunities to work in a range of destinations, including North and South America, Asia, Australasia, and more.
Under the Radar
Both Intern Abroad HQ and The Intern Group have faced a very limited amount of online criticism.
One Reddit user accused The Intern Group of being a ‘sham,’ alleging that after they paid an enrollment fee, they were not matched with any potential employers and that the company tried to ‘squeeze more money out of [them]’ for accommodation. When the Reddit user told The Intern Group they could no longer afford the programme, their requests for a monetary refund were reportedly rejected.
Another Reddit user shared their experience of researching internships with Intern Abroad HQ. They had reportedly been looking at an internship scheme in New York, which would have amounted to almost £11,000 for 12 weeks, including accommodation. They claimed that the company could not provide any information on where they would be staying or who they would be working for and told them to pay a fee of £900 to secure their place on the scheme. Another Reddit user replied to this comment saying that the scheme they completed in Prague ‘sucked’ and adding: ‘They don’t tell you where you are going to live unless you ask. That’s for a reason. It is the most disgusting and [unsafe] place about 45 minutes outside of Prague.’
Weighing Your Options
As the job market becomes increasingly competitive and young people become increasingly desperate to enhance their CVs, we must ask ourselves about the ethical implications of these programmes. Not only do they cost students money, but they also widen a pre-existing disparity between students who can afford to work for free and those who cannot.
In a statement to Shout Out UK, Intern Abroad HQ explained that their fees ‘primarily cover the costs of accommodation and meals for […] interns while they are overseas,’ adding: ‘These are expenses that individuals would still incur even if they arranged the internship themselves.’ Intern Abroad HQ also assists interns in finding local accommodation at lower costs and is open to excluding accommodation from packages on a case-by-case basis.
Intern Abroad HQ also clarified that they do not pay the host organisation for the internship, nor does the host organisation pay Intern Abroad HQ.
With regards to the pricing of their schemes, Intern Abroad HQ explained that host organisations provide supervision, training, coaching, and personal development for their interns, creating a ‘very clear value exchange for both parties.’ They added that they ‘strive to make [their] programs as affordable and accessible as possible’ by offering lower fees than their competitors.
The statement continued:
‘We assist many students who — similar to study abroad experiences — use our programs as an approved platform to gain academic credit and/or fulfil graduation requirements. They do this in an educational capacity, prior to entering the job market, and are not displacing local employment through doing so.’
In response to the aforementioned online criticisms, the statement said:
‘We provide full transparency to our interns on where they will be living and what organisation they will be interning with — but only after they have paid their fee. For obvious reasons, we cannot source an internship for someone who has not paid for this service.’
Intern Abroad HQ continued:
‘One individual’s complaint about their accommodation is not representative of the 1000s of interns we support each year.’
The company said they will always help interns to find alternative accommodation in the event of a complaint.
*The Intern Group was also contacted for comment.
DISCLAIMER: The articles on our website are not endorsed by, or the opinions of Shout Out UK (SOUK), but exclusively the views of the author.
Elizabeth Bratton
Elizabeth Bratton is a reporter at Varsity student newspaper at the University of Cambridge and a Reporter Fellow at Latin America Reports. She is also the founder of youth-run news website Doorstep News.
