Subsidized access to recruiting for nonprofits

As Marni Morse argued in her most recent column, a substantial barrier to many Princeton students pursuing internships or jobs in the nonprofit sector isn’t a lack of will, but rather a lack of access. Within the specific context of arguing for subsidized NJ Transit tickets for students, she wrote that it would especially benefit students who have to travel to New York or Philadelphia for interviews with nonprofits, since these organizations often can’t reimburse the cost of transportation. In turn, applying for those jobs and internships would become more feasible for low-income students and more palatable for students of all income levels.

Funding for the internships themselves is obviously the most critical feature in expanding access to unpaid internships, and broadly speaking the University succeeds tremendously in this area with programs like the Student Activities Funding Engine and departmental funding, as well as other resources for internships and special projects. This column is not to say that the University is failing students who want to work in the nonprofit sector, especially compared to many of its peers. However, if the University truly wants to expand access to nonprofit internships and careers and make recruitment for these roles more comparable to the recruiting efforts performed by other (largely paid) industries, it should seek to tackle head-on the further barriers to access that, on the margin, work to stop talented students from pursuing careers in the social sector.

I believe Marni is right in this context to argue for subsidized NJ Transit tickets, but I believe her contention should be generalized to include a broader fund for students with barriers-to-access problems for nonprofit recruiting. Students with interviews in the nonprofit sector or with application fees for fellowships and other programs could apply to this fund for small-dollar funding to pay for the associated, incidental costs of going through the recruiting process. These applications would be very brief, commensurate with the low level of funding needed, and could thus be subject to much quicker turnaround times than formal thesis research or internship funding applications currently are. This would allow both for more students to consider working in the social sector, and for students who do apply for positions in this sector, to apply for a greater number of roles, better allowing them to match their talents to a place that needs them.

While this argument of course applies best on the margins, that is not to say that its impact is theoretical or minimal. Any time a student decides to take another interview with a nonprofit that requires them to travel, or applies to another opportunity, the chance is higher that they will end up working in that sector and being matched with an opportunity that best suits them. By making the application and recruiting process similar to that of the private sector then, on the margin, it is likely a few more talented Princeton students each summer and each year at graduation would be going into overrepresented industries and into the social sector than do otherwise. This benefit, while relatively small compared to most policy changes advocated in student opinion columns, would be far from trivial to the people and causes directly and positively impacted by the presence of more well-trained, motivated Princeton students working in the social space . This could also include an expansion of the Princeternship Program, which allows students to shadow an alumni practitioner in their field for between one and five days over a break. This program, while greatly beneficial to students looking to explore varied career options they may not otherwise have experienced before, currently is contingent on the student’s ability to pay for the costs. Even funding these programs around the edges (such as paying for travel to the city, or transportation to the work site, if not funding all costs of the stay) would make this a dramatically more attractive and accessible option for students, and open them up to new career opportunities, especially in the public and social sectors.

Finally, the fact that a lot of this money would go to students who aren’t necessarily too financially disadvantaged to not be able to afford the costs otherwise is still not an argument that we should not provide them this opportunity at a subsidized cost. Over the last decade, the percentage of graduating seniors going into finance, for instance, has declined to around 25percent for the Class of 2014, from a peak of about 45 percent for the Class of 2006. Therefore, there is clearly a growing interest among the student population in pursuing alternative career paths, and Princeton’s resources, rather than focus on further developing that interest, could be better used removing barriers to access for students who are interested in such career options. The magnitude of this shift amounts to hundreds of students who could potentially benefit from access to opportunity programs for jobs and/or internships in the public and social sectors, and any improvement in such programs, even marginal like paying for transportation, could help connect talented Princeton students with public or social employers that could benefit greatly from their work.

Ryan Dukeman is a Wilson School Major from Westwood, Mass. He can be reached at rdukeman@princeton.edu.