On March 8^th, newly elected Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett will release his first budget proposal.  He has pledged that he will not raise taxes, but given Pennsylvania’s current budget deficit costs inevitably must be eliminated somewhere.  Some people are predicting that Corbett plans to eliminate subsidies that go to the Commonwealth System of Higher Education, which includes Temple University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Pittsburgh, and Lincoln University.  These appropriations account for $690 million dollars in funding split evenly, which accounts for 17% of Temple’s operating budget alone.

With our country in the midst of an economic slide, budget cuts are an inevitable evil.  It makes sense that in order to avoid a continually increasing deficit, costs need to be decreased.  That being said, Corbett would be making an enormous mistake by choosing to eliminate Commonwealth appropriations.  Without that funding from the state, universities will be forced to eliminate jobs of non-tenured professors and other staff.  Temple has already warned non-tenured professors their job status may be affected by the impending budget cuts.  The number of students and workload for professors will subsequently increase because those jobs have been eliminated.  Tuition goes up every year for students as it is; now the students may have to pay even more because universities need to cover its operating budget.

Instead of eliminating costs altogether, Pennsylvania should be cutting costs across the board and investing that money in our future.  President Obama, in his State of the Union Address, emphasized America’s need to invest in its infrastructure through education and creating jobs for its citizens.  By eliminating the Commonwealth appropriations, Corbett is taking money away from what should be its highest priority.    Education is the most important piece of infrastructure that the United States should be investing in because it is the key to our success as a society.  I think politicians sometimes forget who actually bears the burden of their decisions.  Not only do the students and employees bear the burden of this decision, but Pennsylvania as a whole does.

Hey everybody!  I wanted to introduce myself and welcome everyone back to the InternGURU blog.  My name is Matthew Hughes and I am the new administrator and social media extraordinaire for Internship Success Inc.  With our current economic climate, investing in education and jobs is the key to emerging from adversity successfully.  Join us at InternGURU for commentary on the latest news, information on Internship Success Inc. and the Internship Institute, and a community where everyone is welcome to share their experiences and insights.

Cindy Morgan-Jaffe a.k.a – The Intern Lady – today interviewed Matthew Zinman on her 30-minute online talk show “InternBuzz” about the topic of unpaid internships and the recently launched advocacy site: PayInterns.com.

The interview may be accessed at:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/internlady/2010/07/02/intern-buzz

The lively dialogue covered a wide range of related issues addressed by The Intern Bill of Rights and Proposed Reforms published on the site. As detailed as the interview was, it will likely have a Part 2 sometime in the coming weeks.

Stay Tuned!

Many people think that unpaid internships are a good thing.  That’s to be expected with any cultural norm, as was once slavery, women’s suffrage and black segregation. Internships are indeed an American institution, rooted not just in decades of evolution, among which exists a culture of free labor, but also in centuries of Apprenticeship and its role as a foundation for individual prosperity and our collective economic vitality.

In a perfect world – at the micro-economic level – [unpaid] internships can be a very good thing. But they are not all created equal.  However, in the big picture, – at the macroeconomic level – they become extremely detrimental.How?

“The Case for Intern Compensation” directly correlates with a number of interrelated issues including – but not limited to – college affordability and accessibility; graduate conversion rates and matriculation duration; equal opportunity employment and social stratification; the reduced accessibility to adequate student loans and the related immediate and long-term debt burden; and abusive practices by businesses to leverage free labor as an alternative to what might otherwise be paid job opportunities for unemployed workers. So this issue impacts a much greater “Internship Eco-System” and diminishes our ability to harness the full power of internships to fulfill the promise of American Youth to revitalize our economy and America’s global competitiveness.

We address all of these issues and more in our Intern Bill of Rights and Proposed Reforms, published at PayInterns.com Whether here or there, I’d love to hear what you think!