It’s one of the oldest routines in the book; at the end of your college year in May you have gotten yourself hooked up with an awesome internship for the summer.  The hope is that you can make some important connections for a future career. College students spend hours laboring over applications and meeting with the college internship department just to land the most coveted summer jobs out there.

But what may seem like an incredible opportunity leaves many with an empty bank account.

While it may seem like an awesome opportunity and a way to keep busy over the summer, for most students it comes at a high cost. Students  already pinned down by loans suffer from the conflict of whether to spend their months off earning no money at all and go deeper into debt- or to sacrifice and get a job just to save up money.

Many of the best internships are located in cities, meaning that struggling interns must pay for their transportation costs.  Therefore, they can be theoretically losing money to have this “job.” Often times companies with many interns will provide housing.  This may sound like great compensation but may just mean they pack as many 20 year olds into a tiny apartment as they can and let them figure out the rest.

Are these college students smart networkers who are setting themselves up for their career, or are they being used and thrown out into the street by these companies?

“The work expected out of you along with little to no pay does not add up, but they are good for establishing connections,” reacted VHS senior Ciarra Davison. While these connections may help some students in the long run, more often than not college graduates are struggling to find a job despite previous experience.

A 2013 survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers showed that 63 percent of those who had paid internships received at least one job offer after college as compared to only 37 percent of unpaid interns and 35 percent of those who never had any internship.

Over the past couple of years many business have come under fire for their unpaid internship programs.  Many interns have complained about being mistreated and more importantly underpaid, and this has raised the question of whether unpaid internships should even be legal.

Condé Nast is one of the most recognizable publishing names in the business and once had one of the most acclaimed internship programs. Young men and women would sacrifice anything to land this coveted position. For Lauren Indvik, if this meant losing 15 pounds the week before her interview, the long walks in heels or sharing a bed with a fellow struggling friend, she would do it, and for Lauren it all paid off. Indvik interned for Vogue in 2008 and later became the co-editor in chief of Fashionista.com. There are thousands of girls around the world who would accept an internship at a Condé Nast just to get inside of the building even if it meant picking up laundry or going on coffee runs, because to them it is the experience and connections.

Despite the prestige that surrounds Condé Nast internships, the program officially shut its doors this year after a lawsuit brought the company into the spotlight of lawmakers. Two former interns sued the company for failing to pay them minimum wage.

“The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law do not allow employers to allow workers to work for free – even if the workers give their consent, claimed the interns attorney Rachel Bien. While this complaint may seem like a popular one in this world of opportunity these interns are a dime in a dozen.

Jenny Achiam, a former intern for Lucky Magazine complained to the New York Post that the interns had ruined it for everyone else. “It’s a shame that the resources won’t be available to other students in the future,” she argued. She went on to say that if it was really that bad any intern has the chance to drop out before pursuing the rest of the work.

“I definitely think some of them are worth the experience, others are borderline slavery,” added Verona High School Senior Emily Gagliostro.

The legality of unpaid internship programs is still not determined, but the more students continue to accept the positions the longer it will be around. Even it means packing box after box and running tedious errands aspiring young men and women are willing to make that sacrifice in order to help build their future empire.