Stop Forcing Students to Sacrifice Income for Experience

“…many in the industry don’t want to mentor students or participate in internship programs if students are being paid because they don’t feel they’re in it for the love of music.”

– Internship Presenter

Let’s cut to the chase, no sugarcoating – there should be no such thing as an unpaid internship in the music industry. A college student taking an unpaid internship currently faces an opportunity cost upwards of $15,000. The worst part is the cost to the host company and the University: $0.

I enjoyed taking economics in college – although my grades in those classes might not reflect it (in my defense, I was a music major!). However, my favorite economic principle, Opportunity Cost (the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen; i.e. what are the total costs both indirectly and directly of choosing one path over another) perfectly illustrates the inequity students are forced to face. And as we’ve already seen, it’s sobering.

The opportunity cost of taking an unpaid internship looks like this:

The full reality is, when any company asks a student to take an unpaid internship, they’re not only asking them for free labor, they’re asking them to pay for the internship and work experience, and at great personal and financial expense. What these companies and those managing interns forget (or can be ignorant to) is interns are paying their school for the credits they receive.

Is It Possible?

This doesn’t even begin to cover the issues that students who are in lower socioeconomic positions face when considering unpaid internships. For them, it’s a no-go, and the inequity grows exponentially. Many have cases similar to mine – they couldn’t give up any sort of income they earned because their parents couldn’t provide them with financial support while in school. Their income (however small) covers bills, food, transportation, books, travel to and from home for breaks, and more. And because they’re likely working minimum wage, it’s also likely they’re making less than $1,000 a month.

Let’s dig deeper. Based on information from the National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2022, 38.9% of full-time undergraduate students aged 16-24 (85.4% of all undergrads) were employed. Here’s where it gets interesting: 10.6% were employed for between 10-19 hours a week, and 16.7% of them were employed for 20-34 hours per week. Let’s put those numbers to work. If you have an undergrad program with 200 students, it’s more than likely that 78 of them are employed to some degree with more than 50% of them working up to 35 hours per week. Why are we penalizing those students for doing what they need to do to survive?

We can’t continue to ask these students to choose graduation and their future over survival in the here and now. How many incredibly hard-working candidates from a significantly key hiring pipeline are being overlooked because they can’t afford to take an internship?

Is It Worth It?

The other elephant in the room? Many times, unpaid internships aren’t developed with professional growth or a true learning experience in mind. They just need someone to do work the rest of the staff don’t want to do.

“I don’t know if you’re into music or that sort of thing.”

– Internship Company Owner

Here’s a prime example. Heading into my senior year in college, I needed an additional two credits to meet my graduation requirements. I needed to juggle a part-time job, a full credit load, and an internship at the same time. Luckily, I found the perfect place to intern – and they paid! However, they had me choose between being paid and providing credit, even though as we’ve laid out, providing the credit comes at no cost to them.

At the end of the day, I chose the pay in case I needed to reduce my hours at my part-time job to make it work. I’m glad I did. At that internship, I ended up doing work that didn’t provide me with any sort of professional development or understanding of the music industry. I spent 90% of my time trying to figure out how to sell the owner’s self-financed movie to a film distributor. I hardly did any music work. At one point while interning at that music company, the owner said to me, “I don’t know if you’re into music or that sort of thing.” Needless to say, had I not been paid, I’m not sure how I would have reacted, but I would have raised even more hell than I did to my program’s admin about that internship and its value to other students.

The honest truth that many in the industry seem to ignore (either intentionally or unintentionally) is students who don’t have money are just as dedicated, as willing to learn, and will perform just as well if not better. The only issue is they can’t take your internships because they need the money to survive. It’s not about want, and it’s not about greed. They have deep passion for music, and most of all, they want to learn from the companies and people shaping the industry day-in and day-out. By putting them in this arbitrary position, companies and colleges have created an environment where those with money enter the industry with a leg up on those who aren’t as financially well-off.

How Do We Fix It?

In my mind, the only ones who can solve this issue are universities.

Universities can take a stand on this issue in multiple ways. They have provided major corporations and entertainment companies a key pipeline of interns and workers for decades. In fact, they’re not allowed to hire an intern unless they’re a student at an accredited university. If universities speak up, they’ll listen.

Universities should not be subjecting their students to or promoting unpaid internships. Not only that, but if they’re going to require internships to graduate, they need to do a better job at helping place their students into internships. If a student is paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to study the Music Business at any university, they should be given more opportunities for internships than a simple, “Here’s an available internship, go apply.” They should be able to apply through their school, meet hiring managers, HR teams, and have more direct access to opportunities outside of applying through a general application portal.

Let’s put together a roundtable of university program directors and internship program directors at major labels, publishers, independents, and beyond to come up with a solution that benefits all students. If we want them to change the music industry and bring it into the future, we need those with the most influence in the industry to show them that change can be made.

My vision for the perfect internship program? It’s part of your curriculum. Therefore, you don’t need to worry about being paid or having to give up work outside of class. Imagine if music companies partnered with a music business program to make each industry vertical a class they could take. For example, when students study music publishing, they’ll not only take classes but also “intern” at a music publisher for their “lab” or “office hours.” While they learn, they can apply their knowledge in real time and on real-world projects outside of the classroom. This will build their confidence and understanding while giving them the opportunity to explore all parts of the industry without going through a lottery every three months for the chance at an internship.

I applaud Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, The Orchard, Downtown Music, and others who have decided to pay their interns in the last several years while also offering them credit. Progress is progress, no matter how incremental the step forward is, but more companies need to step up to the plate. Even Jaybird pays its interns when we have opportunities!

If a company can’t pay their interns, they need to develop an incredible program for students. One of the shining examples of a well-developed program is at Angry Mob Music. They built their program from the ground up based on past internship experiences to provide students not only with practical and consequential fieldwork and experience in their desired focus area, but also give them the opportunity to rotate through all departments to learn everything they want during the internship and find their perfect fit. The first half of the internship gives them discovery and exploration, and the back half provides them with their choice of focus to lean into more in depth learning, meaningful work, opportunities to apply and build their skills, as well as one on one mentorship with their department heads. That’s how a modern internship should be developed. Students don’t have enough time or resources to intern in every vertical to discover what they want to do, but indies are well-positioned to provide students with highly specific experience, opportunities, and dedicated mentorship that larger corporations can’t.

It’s time to continue this movement in a real and tangible way, bringing more equity to those who don’t have the same opportunities as their peers. To those who haven’t made the change: you are going to find kick-ass, dedicated, and passionate interns when you offer paid internships. Your pool of applicants will increase, be more diverse, have more skills, be scrappier, work harder, offer even more diverse viewpoints, and will be grateful for the opportunity in ways you never imagined. I promise you, they’ll impress you more than you think.