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<p>And the vast majority of coops are paid. And most of the unpaid ones go only to work-study eligible students who are able to get paid out of their work-study money.</p>
<p>I’m reading this thinking about how ridiculously lucky I was that as somebody who majored in journalism and ultimately wanted to do non-profit work, the closest I came to an unpaid internship was writing for free for a free online magazine and taking a coop for a stipend that was not a full salary. I did a co-op and an internship at separate non-profits that paid hourly wages. I also had a non-profit try to convince me to be a full-time unpaid “intern” there after I graduated from college because their whole office was basically staffed with unpaid interns. They wanted me there because I knew a particular software and had a particular skill and suffice to say I don’t think this really would have fallen under the definition of an internship. If it’s volunteer work, call it that.</p>
<p>We do take unpaid interns at the non-profit that I work at right now but we also have a ridiculously tight budget and make a point of giving them varied experiences and making sure that they leave with a wide breadth of experience. And our interns have generally gotten pretty good jobs right afterwards.</p>