Students at 19 Wisconsin colleges and universities are receiving grant money to get paid for internships that would normally be unpaid.
Betty Albrecht says it’s frightening how often she hears that Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) students cannot take an internship because it does not pay. As MSOE’s TRIO coordinator, she works with first-generation and low-income college students.
Now, however, there’s a new grant that will pay students with a financial need for internship work in their field of study. Madison-based student loan provider Great Lakes Educational Corporation recently awarded $2.5 million dollars to UW schools and private colleges across the state. Albrecht says with the grant, students may not have to choose between an internship and a job. “I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about the impact that this is going to have,” Albrecht said, “because many of these students do not have role models in industry and they lack that skill set that they need. This experience will give them a taste of what the world of work is like.”
Many of the schools say they’ll establish paid internships at nonprofits or for-profit start-ups: places that haven’t been able to pay interns in the past.
Tom Knothe is the dean of the Viterbo University’s Dahl School of Business. He says the program is a win-win for the students and internship sites. “The organizations that aren’t able to pay the interns are those that often have great needs for this type of work,” he said, “So yes, I hope the nonprofits get some real value out of it as well.”
Officials with the Great Lakes Educational Corporation say if the grant program is successful, they hope it could become a model program that would expand into more schools and other states.
