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The cost of an internship

There are 5 basic groups of costs associated with an internship:

  1. Recruitment costs

  2. Supervision costs

  3. Intern remuneration

  4. Training costs

  5. Consumables

It might also be reasonable, at the programme level, to consider the cost of overall management. A consideration at this level is from which budget will be costs be taken? Is it an overall training budget or the budget of the individual supervising mentor? If the later was in planned for?

Recruitment Costs

In the recruitment group of costs we include the cost of:

Supervision Costs

In the Supervision group of costs we include the cost of:

Remuneration Costs

Do you pay the student during their internship or not? The answer to whether you can do this legally might depend on which country you are in. Paying the student during their internship and hence being able to market paid internships is likely to yield more and better quality students and lead to improved commitment to the internship on both sides – you company will be more committed because it is paying for the work and the student will be more motivated a) because they are being paid and b) because you value the work sufficiently to want to pay them to do it. The risk of unpaid internships is the student may feel exploited and may lack real commitment – you may find it a challenge then to hold the student to account in terms of doing what you want them to do in time for your operational deadlines. That said most interns recognise the value in the work experience.

So, what choices of remuneration do you have?

The general options open to you are:

Training Costs

In the Training group of costs we include the cost of:

Consumables Costs

In the Consumables group of costs we include the cost of: