Who weeps for the poor, the young, the downtrodden and
exploited?
PBS, that’s who.

For instance, with apprenticeships there’s a small but very
effective office in Washington, D.C., called the Office of
Apprenticeship, which mandates certain basic standards. We have
hundreds of thousands of apprentices today in the U.S., in fact,
mostly in blue-collar trades, and by and large, they get paid a
living wage, they have health insurance, and although the system
has its flaws, it’s relatively fair. If you compare that to
internships, where an estimated third or half are unpaid, there’s
clearly an issue of privilege and access, because a lot of people
can’t afford to work unpaid, and indeed it’s not just working
unpaid: you have to be able to afford rent; you have to be able to
pay for your food while you’re doing this; and it’s increasingly in
the most expensive cities in the country — New York, D.C., L.A. —
where internships are concentrated. So there is really a kind of
disconnect between the ideal that apprenticeships, to some extent,
are fulfilling and what current internships represent.

We should unionize college students and guarantee every single
one of them a fulfilling job at a living wage. Otherwise, we might
as well just feed them to the lions, or drown them at birth.