What do Internships pay?

[icylava]

<p>@NYProspect – D’s GPA is not “really high” as you expected, but above her class average GPA of 3.3. The wages and benefits are fairly typical for her school, the median starting salary for class of 2011 was $87K. Current graduating seniors (class of 2012) are consistently getting low $90K offers now for full time job.</p>

<p>Yes, those are above industry starting salaries, I also believed a confluence of events (links below) triggered the salary arm race. Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook mopped up 1/3 (51/154) of its class of 2011 graduates.</p>

<p>[Apple</a>, Google, and 4 others settle DOJ hiring lawsuit - Sep. 24, 2010](<a href=“http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/24/technology/DOJ_tech_firms_settle_hiring_charges/index.htm]Apple”>http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/24/technology/DOJ_tech_firms_settle_hiring_charges/index.htm)</p>

<p>[Google</a> gives employees 10 percent raise, cash | Internet & Media - CNET News](<a href=“http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20022318-93.html]Google”>http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20022318-93.html)</p>

[umdclassof80]

<p>icylava --</p>

<p>I have two questions. You mention that the graduating seniors at your D’s college are getting offers in the low $90’s. Are these seniors CS majors? In what area of the country are these jobs located? Are they in NYC or Silicon Valley?</p>

[icylava]

<p>Yes, they are CS seniors. Location in Silicon Valley and Seattle, don’t know about NYC.</p>

[umdclassof80]

<p>I suspected that these jobs with such a high starting salary were in an area of the country with a very high cost of living (i.e., Silicon Valley and Seattle). My daughter knows a couple of CS students at her college who interned at Google during previous summers. They earned in the $30-40/hr range.</p>

[turtlerock]

<p>Thought it was interesting this was brought up here a couple days ago since TIME just published an article in their May 21, 2012 edition about unpaid internships and the legality:

Hard Labor. Inside the mounting backlash against unpaid internships
By Josh Sanburn
Shipping thousand-dollar hats from New York City to London. Shuttling heavy bags around Manhattan. Skipping lunch. Working 55-hour weeks. And doing it all for free.
“It was disgusting,” says Diana Wang, 28, of her unpaid labor at Harper’s Bazaar magazine. It was also potentially illegal.
Today an estimated one-third to one-half of the U.S.'s 1.5 million internships are without pay, a trend that has only accelerated since the 2008 financial crisis. Employers contend that they’re paying interns with experience, which can be more valuable than cash, especially in tough-to-break-into fields such as media, fashion and entertainment. But if unpaid interns are working jobs - no matter how menial - that would otherwise go to entry-level employees, federal law mandates compensation. The Fair Labor Standards Act isn’t new; it’s been around since 1938. But in recent months, it has received unprecedented attention, thanks to a trio of class actions led by frustrated ex-interns. Wang, Eric Glatt, and Alex Footman, and Lucy Bickerton are demanding wages from Hearst (the owner of Harper’s Bazaar), Fox Searchlight and PBS, respectively, for being overworked as unpaid interns. (All three firms declined TIME’s interview request but have publicly denied any wrongdoing.)
“They were counting on the fact that nobody would sue, particularly kids who are just out of school,” says Glatt, who took his Fox internship at age 40. “This culture of expecting free labor if you slap the title ‘intern’ on it has become so pervasive that people don’t question whether it’s ethically wrong or legally acceptable.”
That’s starting to change. In response to these lawsuits as well as to advocacy work by the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. Department of Labor has ramped up efforts to educate unpaid interns about their rights. It has also encouraged them to speak out, as opposed to the norm of “keeping your mouth shut and being thankful for anything that comes your way,” as Bickerton, who is suing PBS’s The Charlie Rose Show, put it.
Meanwhile, some companies are preemptively improving their internship programs. Magazine publisher Conde Nast, for example, used to offer unpaid internships without work-hour limits. Now it pays a stipend of $550 per internship, pairs interns with a mentor and sends them home by 7 p.m. at the latest. . . “We’re at the very early stages of a backlash against unpaid internships,” says Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy. “The phenomenon has gone off the rails.”
That’s good news for ex-interns, who Camille Olson, a labor-law attorney at Sayfarth Shaw LLP, says could indeed win their suits, which are still in the early stages of litigation. And fewer unpaid internships could even mean more entry-level jobs for 20-to-24-yearolds, whose unemployment rate in the U.S. hit 13.2% last month.
For now, though, newfound intern rights activists like Glatt are focused on raising awareness. “This will be the last summer that students do [unpaid] internships without recognizing that there’s something fundamentally wrong with them,” he says.

</p>

<p>The article sidebar goes on to give a brief history of the unpaid internship including the blurb:

2008 The financial collapse increases the popularity of paid and unpaid internships, because they’re cheaper than hiring full-time talent. Fifty percent of college students say they have been interns, up from 17% in 1992.

</p>

[Lurker_1]

<p>dungaree: in short, no. VC runs on a very lean structure and recruits very few people from the very top schools.</p>

[fauxmaven]

<p>My son in the Midwest got an internship in Engineering his Junior year and got 31 an hour ,plus a lot of overtime at time and a half .</p>

[Dungareedoll]

<p>S has a mentor/alum at school that he meets with on occasion. He was telling S something very similiar to what Lurker just mentioned.</p>

[Dloef]

<p>My daughter, a soph. next year, will be leaving in a few days for an internship in New mexico. She is a metallurgical engineering major. The company she will be working for is paying her round trip travel expenses and $600 towards her deposit on an apartment. She is making just under $20 an hour and will be working overtime each week. This was a last minute thing and we scrambled to find her an apartment in this small town, but finally found a furnished one with all utilities included for $800 a month. She has to drive down there because there is no public transportation. It is a 12 week internship so she should come out ahead in this deal. She is the only freshmen in her degree program to secure a summer internship. She had 2 phone interviews with different companies is all, and got this one offer. I admit, I am not comfortable sending her 1300 miles away to an apartment we have never seen, in a town we;ve never been to, all by herself, but she really wanted to do this so we made it work for her.</p>

[Dungareedoll]

<p>^^^That sounds like a nice internship. As a mom I certainly understand your concern, but I’m sure it will work out fine. Congrats to your D. </p>

<p>Also Happy Mothers Day to all the Mom’s on CC!!!</p>