By Mark Muckenfuss

A growing number of Cal State Monterey Bay students are benefiting from a new paid internship program targeted at those who are part of historically underrepresented groups. The 10-year Learning Alligned Employment Program is bringing $1.2 million in funding to the campus each year to pay employers up to 80% of an intern’s salary. 

The LAEP funding is not only helping students directly, but also making aan impact on the lives of their families as well. 

“It’s made so much difference,” said Arianna Campos, who began receiving money this semester for an internship she’d previously been working for free. It allowed her to give up her part-time job.

“I was working around 30 hours a week at a fast-food restaurant at the time, working my internship and going to school,” she said. “I was able to leave my fast-food job.”

The additional income has helped her family as well. Campos has a sister, who is also in college. Their mother does what she can to support them, Campos said.

“My mother is a single mother,” she said. “This took so much of a pull off of her.”

Campos is one of about 20 students currently benefiting from the employment program, which is state-funded. But Miguel Silva, a community placement and compliance analyst with the Career Development department, thinks the potential for the program could be five times that number.

“If, within the next year we have 50, I’d be happy,” Silva said. “But upwards of 100 would be nice. I think the opportunity is huge.”

Plans are to establish new internships, or pay for existing ones, in every department across CSUMB. And while the program covers all but 20% of an intern’s salary for off-campus employers, on-campus internships are subsidized 100%. Students can receive up to $16,000 per academic year. 

Adrienne Saxton is the field practice program coordinator for Health, Human Services and Public Policy. She said the program is not only helping to institutionalize paid internships in the region, but it is also allowing interns to work more hours and, thus, gain more experience.

Saxton said her students are required to put in about 240 hours over the course of a year’s study.

“Our educational philosophy in health and human services is that the practicum is a major part,” Saxton said. “We reduced the minimum practicum hours to 240, over the course of three semesters, because we knew our students were working and caregiving as well as going to school.”

But by taking full advantage of the paid internship hours available through the LAEP program, she said, students should be able to work more than 500 hours. 

“It’s a difference-maker,” she said, in terms of experience. “It’s also giving them a leg up in employment. Currently, 80 percent of our students who have internships are offered positions in our tri-county area before graduating.” 

While the long-term benefits are important, Ana Muñoz, who is also president of the Associated Students, is appreciating the immediate effects of the support she’s now receiving through the LAEP program. Before, her off-campus internship was a volunteer position.

“I’m working the same 10 hours a week, but now I’m getting paid,” she said. “It honestly helps a lot, more than I expected.”

With the additional income she receives from her position with the Associate Students, she said, “I can pay my housing on my own. It feels better to know I don’t have to count on my parents.”

Her family, she said, is also helping to support her sister who is in college too. 

“This really helped my dad a lot,” she said. 

Saxton said she is anxious to see more students helped by the program.

“My desire is that every eligible student at a nonprofit or a campus-paid internship is getting this benefit,” she said. “Whatever we can do to support these students in our region should be done.”