Business-Higher Education Forum Releases New Report on Increasing the Supply of Internship Opportunities

Washington, D.C. – September 10, 2024 – The Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) released a new report, Expanding Internships: Harnessing Employer Insights to Boost Opportunity and Enhance Learning, which explores the critical role of undergraduate internships in transitioning students from college to career and building talent pipelines for employers. The report highlights the urgent need to expand internship opportunities and offers key insights into how employers can overcome challenges to provide meaningful, high-quality work experiences for learners and recruit early career professionals.

The report finds that while internships are essential for career development and a valued recruiting tool, there are not sufficient or equitable opportunities available. In 2023, an estimated 3.6 million students completed internships, but another 4.6 million who sought similar experiences were unable to participate, often due to systemic barriers. The report emphasizes the need for targeted interventions to bridge this gap, particularly for students of color, first-generation students, community college students, and those facing financial hardships.

Business-Higher Education Forum CEO Kristen Fox commented on the release of the report, stating, “Internships and other work-based learning experiences are a critical ingredient to aligning education and employment to benefit learners and organizations seeking skilled talent ready for the workforce. This report sheds light on the challenges and opportunities employers face in offering a range of work-based learning experiences and offers actionable recommendations to ensure more students can access these vital career-building experiences.”

The report also underscores the importance of quality in internship programs, noting that students who complete high-quality internships, characterized by clarity, oversight, and skill development, gain a significant advantage in the labor market. However, many employers struggle to offer such programs due to operational challenges, market uncertainties, and restrictive hiring policies.

Tim Sands, President of Virginia Tech and a Business-Higher Education board member commented, “Our goal is to make paid internships available for every student who wants one. This is a critical part of our commitment to economic and social mobility. Achieving this goal requires identifying the strategies that enable us to create more partnerships and opportunities. Building on the insights from this report, our work at BHEF will continue to focus on the ways we can collectively move these recommendations to action.”

To address these challenges, the report offers four key recommendations:

1. Target interventions to increase the supply of internship opportunities based on BHEF’s Early-Career Hiring Employer Profiles.
   – Recruiters: Employers who offer internships and have early-career job openings, so that internships provide on-ramps to early-career opportunities.
   – Producers: Employers who offer internships but don’t have full-time, early-career job openings, providing interns with experience that may benefit their full-time employer in the future.
   – Consumers: Employers who do have full-time, early-career job openings but don’t offer internships, hiring staff that may have benefitted from another company’s internship program.
   – Observers: Employers who neither offer internships nor have full-time, early-career job openings.
2. Build intermediary structures that can support scaling internship operations and reduce the burden on individual employers.
3. Expand and test different intensity, yet still high-quality, models that align the needs of both employers and learners to scale supply and enable inclusive participation.
4. Develop industry-recognized, data-driven elements of quality internships to ensure that all internships provide meaningful and impactful learning experiences.

The full report is available for download at bhef.com/internships.