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Comment by Meekro | Hacker News Reader

That's a fair analysis. It makes me wonder if there's any way to re-create that signal without forcing people to incur 6 figures in debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy. As far as I can tell, many people learn very little in their college classes -- but it does still signal whether someone can shut up and do what they're told, turn in assignments on time, set a 4 year goal and accomplish it, etc.

"Bring back unpaid internships" is one obvious way to re-create the signal, assuming companies would be willing to take on ambitious 18 years olds and teach them. As a hiring manager, do you think there is any way to make this happen?

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In the US context, I'm strongly opposed to unpaid internships [at least in tech] (because I believe that paid internships are inherently more equitable and unpaid internships have a bunch of moral hazards for bad employers to exploit that even a local minimum wage internship does not have).

Paid internships are great and whenever we're expecting to have open entry-level positions the following year, we run a paid internship program. It's an excellent source of future talent for us and (IMO) is good training/experience for the interns.

I think it would be illegal to have an unpaid internship program in many states unless the intern was doing the internship as part of a degree-granting [or at least academic credit earning] program. (That's at least a close summary of the law in MA where I am.) And in tech, I can't think of much reason to have an unpaid internship program, even if legal. If I can afford the staff time to direct and supervise the interns, I can afford the $15/hour minimum wage* and that aligns everyone's incentives better.

* We pay substantially more than this to interns, but even paying the legal minimum wage aligns incentives.

I’d gladly take an internship that paid minimum wage or at least had a meal and transportation stipend.

The argument is that unpaid or minimally paid internships--especially if they're pervasive for specific types of roles--are basically not viable for a lot of people.

There are counter-arguments. You're getting free on the job training even though you're barely worth it even working for free. And lots of jobs like acting and writing, can involve years of trying (often unsuccessfully) to land something that pays.

Yes, and the person I'm responsing to is advocating for people getting paid. I added on by saying I'd be happy being paid minimum wage, or just having someone pay for lunch and transit, which adds up to probably 30-40 dollars a day now with the inflation.

If someone isn't worth that much, why even bother entertaining working for you and your friends? Not like you won't throw my resume in the trash anyways.

I'm working on starting my own thing, so don't feel bad you fell for someone telling you "you're barely worth anything."

> As far as I can tell, many people learn very little in their college classes -- but it does still signal whether someone can shut up and do what they're told, turn in assignments on time, set a 4 year goal and accomplish it, etc.

If we're going to be brutally honest, at many, many companies, that's all you need to know how to do in order to have a fine career. Do what you're told, do it on time, and sustain that activity for years. Some companies say they want things like creativity, initiative, leadership, blah, blah, blah, but they're just words. Most of them are looking for cogs who take direction and finishing a 4 year degree shows you can do that.

> It makes me wonder if there's any way to re-create that signal without forcing people to incur 6 figures in debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy.

Lawmakers can create a law which say that educational debt above Y dollars can be discarged in bankruptcy. Of course anything like that will have second and further order effects too.

Hold on… can a private person not default in the USA? In Europe you can default and it takes 3 years and you are cleared from credits.

> can a private person not default in the USA

They can. But there are some debts which cannot be discharged that way. (Meaning some debts go away, but others don't.)

For example if you owe child support payments that doesn't go away just because you default. Or if you owe someone debt because you caused them an injury in a wilful and malicious manner that cannot be discharged by defaulting. These are explicitly defined exceptions in the USA law. And so is student loans.

Unpaid internships are terrible. They fall mostly to wealthy students who can afford to take a year of unpaid work.

> many people learn very little in their college classes

Is this because the student doesn't pay attention, or the student already knew all the material?

You are missing option C: College classes simply don't teach very much.

Because they didn’t pay attention. Or were too busy partying.

I wasn’t the best student, but I learned a ton in those four years.

It is likey just anecdota from bad colleges/bad students. I went to a normal german university, did not complete on my own terms, but I surely learned there a lot. Even though the university intentionally did not hold my hand teaching me programming. I had to do that mostly on my own. But they gave the theoretical foundation of all the important concepts about IT. Algorithms, data structure, information theory, math, .. things I did not often see at the time any direct benefit "to get shit done". But it payed off.

No, no, no. Bring back paid apprenticeships. There clear incentives to abuse the unpaid internship system and exacerbate disadvantage.

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