While you could spend your summer in the sun (life guarding, landscaping, babysitting) at a job that pays minimum wage or just slightly better, you’ll double the value of the time you spend working if you take an internship.
Not only are many employers willing to pay well above minimum wage to their interns, employers also are interested in hiring full-time employees from their intern pools, making an internship the proverbial “foot in the door” to a job after graduation.
Employers responding to a national survey on internships and co-operative education programs reported offering their undergraduate interns an average of $16.33 per hour—and nearly $25 per hour for interns at the master’s degree level.
A variety of factors affect internship salaries, including the your degree level, year in school, and field of study, as well as the organization’s industry and location.
For example, a senior studying for a bachelor’s in one of the engineering fields averages $19.44 per hour, while a sophomore engineering student averages $16.65. Similarly, overall, undergraduate business majors earn less per hour than their counterparts studying the computer sciences—$15.62 versus $16.68, respectively.
The purpose of the program also has an effect on salary.
“Average hourly salaries to interns are even higher among those organizations that use their internship programs to help them recruit full-time hires,” says Marilyn Mackes, executive director of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the nonprofit that produces the annual survey.
Among employer whose organizations have recruiting-focused programs, the average hourly salary to an undergraduate intern is $16.69, and $25.93 to a master’s level intern.
Internships pay off in another way, according to the report. Almost all responding employers said that their internship programs are an important part of their college recruiting effort. That means, employers look at their own interns as potential full-time hires.