Contextualizing Serviceships: Describing and Understanding the Influence of Financial Compensation on College Student Intern Performance

Serviceships, contrary to traditional corporate internships, are internships hosted by nonprofit organizations. This hybrid blend of service-learning and internships offers a strategic path for students to engage with multiple high-impact practices simultaneously. High-impact practices are shown to offer various educational benefits, such as improvement in retention, engagement, and student learning, especially for students from underserved backgrounds. However, nonprofit organizations do not always have the budget to support interns. They may select an intern for an unpaid position that provides practical work experience or may seek an internship sponsor to financially support the intern experience. We employed a constructivist, qualitative study utilizing focus groups with internship supervisors at nonprofits to answer our primary research questions regarding the internship context within nonprofit organizations and how compensation impacts overall intern output and engagement in the role. Half of the nonprofit internship employers indicated that they received a greater return on investment from paid interns, while 40% indicated that they saw equal benefit from paid and unpaid interns. We learned that “paid internships” from the perspective of the nonprofit employer generally alludes to compensation, which is not always monetary but may come in other forms, such as class credit. Due to the expanded view of compensation, references to paid internships may include financial compensation or course credit, either or both positively impacting the student. Our findings have implications for nonprofit partners who host interns and for universities looking to maximize the benefits of high-impact practices for their students.