Upaid internships, no one likes you.

In an article for The Guardian, Sally Weale describes the real cost of unpaid internships in the UK.

A third of university graduates who are employed as interns receive no payment, while paying out up to £926 a month in living costs, according to new research published on Wednesday.  

A six-month unpaid internship would cost a single person living in London a minimum of £5,556, according to research by the Sutton Trust, which argues that interns who work for more than a month should be paid at least the minimum wage of £6.50 per hour.

An estimated 21,000 interns are working for nothing in the UK at any one time, despite widespread public concern about them giving huge advantage to young people from wealthy families better positioned to work for free. A newly published Ipsos Mori poll for the Sutton Trust says 70% of people aged 16-75 in England agree unpaid internships “are unfair because only people from wealthy families are likely to be able to work for a significant period without pay”.

Read the full article here.

Misery loves company (and cheese)

In a piece for The Varsity, University of Toronto's student newspaper, Heather Eason offers depressing attainable leisure pursuits for cash-strapped students.

Pro tip: if you pour box wine into a respectable jug, no one will be the wiser. For the slightly more affluent, step up your wine-tasting with a selection of inexpensive (read: fluorescent orange) cheeses. For extra panache, remove cheese slices from their individual wrappings before guests arrive. And remember: aerosol cheese sounds respectable if you call it “mousse.”

Read the full article here.

Tina Fey gets it!

At 15m30s onwards, Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, and Katie Couric discuss the crippling debt that separates the current university experience from that of their generation.
And anything with Tina Fey couldn't possible be bad, right?