Study on Barriers for Student Internships

June 11, 2019   |   By Jeremy Bauer-Wolf

From Inside Higher Ed

A new report out of the University of Wisconsin at Madison shows that students have trouble pursuing internships because they’re preoccupied with work or had too heavy of a course load.

Researchers at the university surveyed more than 1,000 students at three anonymous institutions. About 500 of the students answered questions about what barriers prevented them from taking internships. About 58 percent of them said that in lieu of an internship, they had to work at a current job, and nearly 52 percent said that they had too much work in their classes.

The researchers stated in their paper that universities need to work on restructuring internship programs to make them more accessible.