Haas Creates Internship “Stimulus Fund” for Its MBA Students
The University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business has announced that it is creating its own stimulus package of sorts, directed at MBA students seeking summer internships.
Haas’s newly unveiled “MBA Summer Internship Stimulus Fund” will provide eligible students with stipends of up to $5,000 to close the gap for businesses that can no longer pay interns the market rate.
To be eligible, students must have summer internship offers in writing and companies must still meet all applicable employment laws. Students doing internships at both smaller and larger businesses can qualify, but startups must have at least five employees and meet certain funding criteria.
Haas students in the school’s part-time MBA program or in the first year of its full-time MBA program can receive funds, as can students in the first or second year of Haas’s joint MBA/MPH program.
According to Abby Scott, Haas’s assistant dean of career management and corporate partnerships, the fund will help both Haas MBA students and companies whose summer internship plans have been hit by the current economic situation.
In her words: “We know that some companies are experiencing significant financial constraints right now and supplementing student compensation through this stipend program will help impacted organizations access Berkeley MBA talent for the summer.”
She added that “If a company cannot pay a typical summer salary, they can still hire a Berkeley MBA intern as long as they are contributing to student wages and meeting standards governed by employment law.”
Of course, the school still requests that employers “contribute as much as they are able to toward student wages.”
Haas plans to award stipends from the Internship Stimulus Fund on a rolling basis as long as funds are available. Awards that are made will be paid when the internship begins.
This “stimulus package” for summer internships is just the latest way MBA programs have adapted to the pandemic, from waiving GMAT requirements to creating coronavirus-themed courses. Top B-schools have been using the resources at their disposal to support their students during this time.
That institutional support is one of the advantages that top MBA programs provide, both in good times and challenging ones. As always, we’re ready to help you evaluate how your profile stacks up at top schools and what you can do to emphasize your unique strengths to adcoms – just ask us for a free MBA application assessment!