Students Face Fewer Internship Stipends

By Kyle Warneck
News Associate

At almost any time of the day, the Pomona College’s award winning Career Development Office (CDO) is buzzing with activity. “The only time it’s quiet is at eight in the morning,” said CDO Director Carl Martellino.

Internships, one of the CDO’s many responsibilities, are of increasing importance to this generation of college students. “Nationwide nearly three-fourths of college students do at least 2 internships while in college. The most astonishing part of that number is that 20 years ago that was only three percent,” said Martellino.

Pomona College provides internship opportunities through the Pomona College Internship Program (PCIP).

The PCIP program offers stipends to students who participate in unpaid internships during the school year. Pomona is one of only a handful of colleges nationwide that offers such a program. In response to recommendations made by members of Pomona’s Power Dynamic Awareness Committee (PDAC), the program has been restructured to make internships more accessible to students on financial aid.

The PCIP program was started with just such a sense of equity in mind. The intention of the program was to give all students the opportunity to work in an unpaid internship even though many students can not afford to work for free. Nearly sixty percent of Pomona students receive some form of financial aid. Almost ten percent of the class of ’06 pays all of their tuition through a combination of grants and loans. PCIP was designed to provide opportunities for these students who even with financial aid cannot afford to take an unpaid job.

In its initial incarnation, the program was open to all students who were willing to work a minimum of sixty hours in an unpaid internship. All students were given a small reimbursement for transportation per mile. This subsidy often totaled fifty dollars or less for the semester. Students on financial aid were also given an additional stipend of $425. The College agreed to fund these internships as a way of acknowledging that working at an internship can trade off with a work study job on campus.

The program was strongly supported by students and the College expanded it to include even more students. Stipends were expanded to include all students, whether on financial aid or not. The CDO also wanted to make some distinction in pay based on the number of hours students worked.

Under the original system a student who worked 60 hours in a semester and a student who worked 120 received the same pay. To make the system more equitable, the PCIP program introduced a tiered pay scale. Students who worked sixty to eighty hours were given $425. Those who worked 81-119 hours received $525 and the small number of students who worked 120+ hours were given $625. In an attempt to provide as many paid internships as possible, the travel reimbursement was eliminated.

This incarnation included a broader array of students, but according to PDAC students who investigated the program last spring, it still failed to provide adequate financial support to some students. Students often had upfront costs they had to pay out of pocket, like the costs of transportation, which would only be refunded when students received their first paycheck several weeks into the semester. PDAC members were also concerned that the pay was still low to make it feasible for all students.

In response to their recommendations, the PCIP program was changed again. While students expressed concerns that the stipends were still too small to make work financially feasible for all students, the CDO was still interested in offering as many internships as possible. To balance these concerns, PCIP now has two pay scales, one for students on financial aid and one for those who are not. Students not on financial aid receive $475, $575 and $675 dollars based on the number of hours they work. Students on financial aid receive $675, $775 and $875 respectively. The CDO has also reinstated travel reimbursements which are now given before an internship starts. Students are given, in advance, money for gas, mass transit and parking based on a system of zones, which roughly correspond to the number of miles traveled.

Intern Coordinator and Career Counselor Monica Cezareo who directs the program said, “Internships provide such a valuable experience, all students should have the opportunity to do at least one internship while they are here [at Pomona].” She says that the changes are making a real difference to students. “I’ve had a few students say that they are happy with the changes because this is the only way they are able to participate in the program,” she reported.

While these changes have helped to make PCIP more accessible, there is a cost to these changes. These changes come as the overall budget for PCIP has been reduced. Especially at the new, higher pay scales, the program will be able to fund fewer internships than in past years. Initial plans expected to have only enough funds for fifty internships. Extra funding was found to increase that to seventy internships this semester, however, next semester, the budget is expected to once again allow only fifty to fifty-five internships. Competition for these spots is expected to be intense. The program traditionally receives over one hundred applicants for these limited spots.

PDAC Coordinator Joy Osborne ’04 was pleased to hear that the CDO had responded to PDAC’s recommendations. “Professional experience is really important for everyone. To get it, some students got stuck working multiple jobs. This is a step in the right direction. It’s a good compromise between students on financial aid and students who do not receive aid but are also seeking those professional experiences. I respect the CDO for making a difficult choice like this,” she said.

While the quantity of PCIP internships may decrease, the CDO is looking at ways to increase the quality of opportunities. Each year, PCIP has more companies and organizations offering internships than it can fund. In this sellers market, Cezareo is looking seriously at student feedback and other indicators to try to find only the best opportunities. “Good internships will enable students to begin building their professional identity as they learn more about that specific field,” she said.

Jamie O’Brien ’04 recently started a PCIP internship at Gould Asset Management. He expressed ambivalence over the changes. “I think the real implication [of the changes] is that it’s a more competitive program now because the fact that your on financial aid doesn’t play any role in the decision making process. More students are going to apply. Whether that’s good or bad is up to you,” he said.

Even with the reduced number of PCIP internships, the CDO is confident that it can continue to provide services for all students. “Our biggest commitment is to one on one counseling,” Martellino says. Unlike the approach taken at other colleges, “you don’t ‘place’ a Pomona student – Students can do anything with their major. It’s their interests and experiences that will determine what they do" He responds, “the CDO does not take the summer off.”

For Martellino, the CDO and the PCIP program are closely related to the mission of the college. Not only does it help graduates find jobs, “just like studying abroad, it’s about taking what’s in the classroom and applying it in the world. What we do is an important part of producing well-educated men and women.”