Song, H. & Hora, M. T. (2024). Navigating Barriers to Access Internships: Challenges for Thwarted Interns Across Institution Types and Student Demographics. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. University of Wisconsin–Madison, Division of Continuing Studies.
Executive Summary
This study investigates the barriers for students at 2-year and 4-year institutions to successfully pursue an internship, an experience that research indicates can have positive impacts on academic development and post-graduate career success. Given prior research suggesting that various demographic and academic attributes such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, first-generation status, and field of study may influence student experiences with various obstacles, we use a combination of descriptive analysis, heat map visualization, and logistic regression to provide new insights into the nature of college student encounters with these barriers.
As part of a partnership between Strada Education and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Research on College Transitions, the National Survey of College Internships (NSCI) was administered in the Spring of 2023 across diverse institutions in the U.S. For this analysis the study sample included 1,067 students from 2-year institutions and 1,016 students from 4-year institutions who had not taken an internship but had been interested in doing so (n=2,083) – a population that we call the “thwarted interns.” These students were asked whether nine possible barriers (e.g., heavy course load, lack of childcare) had prevented them from successfully finding and securing an internship. Descriptive analysis with heat maps and logistic regression analyses were used to illustrate and quantify the extend and distribution of these obstacles.