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Should Interns Be Paid?

What does an intern provide to a company and should they be paid for their work?

If you've ever searched for an internship, you know how rare it is to find one that's paid. Usually, the associated advertisements focus on how potential interns will benefit by working as part of the team at a top company, learning skills they'll use for the rest of their lives, and networking with notable people.

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Why All Businesses Should Pay Their Interns

There's no justifiable reason for why companies shouldn't have to pay their interns.

Pursuant to the United States' Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), an internship can be unpaid if it meets very specific requirements, the most important one being that "the intern's work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern." If the wording there seems a bit murky, that's perhaps intentional, considering the amount of companies who benefit from unpaid student labor each semester. The law was actually rewritten earlier this year following a string of class action lawsuits that were leveled against Fox for not paying its interns. The new law considers the seven parameters outlined in the FLSA, described as a "primary beneficiary test," as flexible, with no single factor being determinative. Unlike in years past, no threshold related to these rules has to be met. The law is now far more subjective and overwhelmingly benefits companies who wish to hire interns without paying them.

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The true cost of college may be even more than you think

The cost of higher education has been steadily increasing over the past four decades and that's not changing

Universities and other advanced schools of learning seem to be raising their prices at an alarming rate. Higher education costs have ballooned over 538% since 1985. To put this in perspective, healthcare has increased more than 286% and the consumer price index has gone up 121%. That means education costs are over four times what they were thirty years ago.

No wonder people are complaining. But with these price increases come a greater quality and a better educational experience than what was to be had twenty or thirty years ago. Whether college is a better overall experience than before is individual and subjective.

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5 ways to make your workplace healthier

It's important to make your workplace a healthy, mentally stimulating environment for yourself.

Some people are lucky enough to work in jobs that keep them fit year-round, like Pilates instructors and Olympic athletes. The rest of us deal with prolonged sitting, donut days and weekly birthday celebrations, and then work on recovering in the after hours. But don't let those 8-hour days sabotage your efforts. Follow these tips to help keep you on the healthy track while at work.

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In defense of mothers who work full time, from one CFO's daughter

One woman's story of a mother who worked full-time and how it affected her

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, slightly less than half of all married households have two working parents. I am in that 47 percent of kids who grew up with a mother and father who worked full-time; they worked throughout my childhood and well into my adult years. (Despite their current empty-nester status, my parents still work full-time, with dreams of retirement somewhere over the 401(k) Rainbow.) Many of my friends, on the other hand, grew up with stay-at-home moms, self-proclaimed homemakers or housewives, who between their child's violin practice, doing carpool and running the booster club, spent plenty of quality time with their children.

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