Advancing Economic Justice In Social Work Education through Paid Internships

The signature pedagogy of social work—the field placement—is currently facing ethical and practical crises. While intended to be a formative professional experience, the traditional model of uncompensated labor increasingly creates significant barriers to student well-being, retention, and diversity.

This roundtable addresses the urgent need for systemic shifts toward compensated internships, utilizing findings from a mixed-method study of 599 BSW and MSW students (response rate 49.6%) at a large public university in the southeastern United States.

This roundtable will bring together diverse perspectives to discuss the following thematic areas:

• The Socio-Economic Toll of Unpaid Labor: Discussion will center on research findings showing that 88.7% of previous internships were unpaid, leading to severe outcomes. The roundtable will share the challenging realities faced by students who reported having acute financial hardship (32.8%), difficulty paying bills (28.4%), diminished well-being (30.2%) and considered leaving the program (15.8%). The qualitative data discussed will include the hardships students shared, including students who were evicted, lost health insurance, and worked 70-hour weeks to survive. The facilitators will explore the perspective that the current model may inadvertently "weed out" diverse talent, specifically impacting the 35.6% of first-generation students and 34.6% of student caregivers identified in the study.
• The Impact of Compensation on Professional Identity: Evidence suggests students in paid placements report higher engagement and a stronger sense of feeling valued as a social worker. The roundtable will debate how financial support functions not just as a survival tool, but as an essential component of student retention and professional socialization. Paid internships are central to economic justice in social work programs.
• Institutional and Legislative Roadmaps: Moving beyond identifying the problem, this roundtable will elaborate on strategies for institutional change. The facilitators will discuss the feasibility of donor-funded stipends, employment-based placements, and legislative advocacy. Perspectives will be shared on the finding that 97.8% of students support legislative mandates for paid internships and 98.4% are willing to support college-led fundraising.

This session adds to the social work knowledge base by moving from theoretical critique of unpaid placements to evidence-based advocacy. By articulating the specific financial and psychological hardships caused by current models, the roundtable offers clear implications for research (e.g., the need for longitudinal data on retention) and policy (e.g., the need for systemic funding models). This roundtable provides a roadmap for utilizing student-led data to ensure the profession remains accessible to all, particularly those from vulnerable populations.