Career and Professional Development awarded $100,000 grant to expand work-based learning opportunities

Kelly Shannon

4 Mar 2024

A woman student crouches to clip part of a shrub as an intern at Hahn Garden. — Emily Wilson, an environmental horticulture graduate, gained valuable experience as a summer intern at the Hahn Horticulture Garden. It's among the kinds of on-campus internships that a SCHEV grant will help Career and Professional Development expand. Photo by Ray Meese for Virginia Tech.

Career and Professional Development has received $100,000 from the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV) to help eliminate barriers impeding student participation in work-based learning.

Internships and work-based learning have been shown to increase postgraduate career success, yet many industries are unable to offer paid internships, putting them financially out of reach for some students. Other significant roadblocks include housing, food, and transportation insecurity, lack of access to professional clothing/uniforms, and the cost of tuition or fees for work-based learning courses.

With the $100,000 Institutional Internship Support Grant, Career and Professional Development will provide the following:

Wage-matching funds to on-campus departments participating in Campus internEXP, allowing a pilot expansion of the program
Funds to students in unpaid internships that support the public good, such as students working for nonprofits or other agencies that provide social services or work toward the betterment of society

“Career and Professional Development is committed to providing equitable access to opportunity,” said Matthew P. Cowley, associate vice provost for Career and Professional Development. “No student should graduate from Virginia Tech without having had a relevant career experience simply because of financial barriers. These resources will directly benefit Virginia Tech students, providing pathways to valuable opportunities that might not have been otherwise available.”

The grant supports the mission of Virginia Tech Advantage, the university’s ongoing commitment to offer a broad educational experience to undergraduates from Virginia with unmet financial need. By offsetting the hidden costs of internships and creating more opportunities for paid internships, Career and Professional Development is offering more resources for career preparation and transformational learning experiences. In addition, the office is working closely with Virginia Tech Advantage to raise funding to support a five-year plan to scale on-campus internships using a 50 percent wage-matching model.

Expanding the Campus internEXP program

The Campus internEXP program aims to increase equitable access to paid on-campus internships for Virginia Tech students while also creating a talent pool that benefits departments across the institution. However, some Virginia Tech departments lack adequate funding to pay students at least the current minimum wage of $12 per hour in Virginia, 10 hours per week for 12 to 16 weeks. The minimum wage in Virginia increases to $13.50 per hour on Jan. 1, 2025, and to $15 per hour on Jan. 1, 2026.

With the SCHEV grant, Career and Professional Development will make available wage-matching funds — money provided to Virginia Tech departments to supplement and offset the cost of wages associated with hiring a paid intern — to support the expansion of on-campus internships for undergraduate students. Wage-matching funds will allow diverse Virginia Tech departments to create new paid internship opportunities, increase their current paid opportunities, and offer more competitive wages to students in their internship programs.

“We currently offer some exciting experiences that range from technical writer to historical interpreter to global engineer, with the support of university units such as the Department of History, Business and Management Systems, University Libraries, and the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost,” said Becca Scott, director of professional development and experiential initiatives in Career and Professional Development. “The financial resources from this grant will help our on-campus internship program tap into the variety of career fields represented on campus and support their ability to serve as important work-based learning opportunities for our students. We look forward to building more opportunities for our students to gain this critical experience for career success right on campus.”

Facilitating unpaid internships for the public good

Additionally, Career and Professional Development intends to leverage funds from the grant to provide financial support for 10 to 20 Virginia Tech students who need financial support to cover housing, moving expenses, transportation, and other costs associated with participating in unpaid work-based learning opportunities that contribute to the public good of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The program will compensate students for work-based learning that is traditionally undercompensated or done on a volunteer basis, such as taking an internship with a nonprofit or nongovernmental organization, interning for a company with social responsibility as a prominent component of its mission, or interning with a start-up engaged in social entrepreneurship.

Career and Professional Development hopes that the success of this program will support increased engagement with individual and corporate donors to reduce the number of Virginia Tech students participating in unpaid internships while protecting the important work that students do to support the public good.

“This grant advances Virginia Tech’s commitment to expand experiential learning opportunities for our undergraduate students, especially those who face financial barriers to participation,” said Rachel Holloway, vice provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs. “For students who must work year-round to pay for their education, the opportunity to gain career-related experience on campus is especially valuable. I’m also excited to see the impact of these funds for students who want to pursue careers in public service.”