<p>Our former interns are living the dream also- because we paid them when they interned here, and we pay them when they return after graduating.</p>
<p>All my kids did unpaid internships- and had to scramble during their off hours working retail and clerical for cash. But these were with museums and political campaigns and NGO’s (and a couple of times they were subsidized by their college with a stipend and fellowship to pay rent, travel and food while they interned, and enough to cover them until they got back to campus in the fall… which was really a blessing.)</p>
<p>But work for free at a Fortune 500 company? Or another profit-making organization? That’s nuts and the faster the Department of Labor shuts this scam down, the happier the companies will be who play by the rules.</p>