By Michael Deely, NCSP, BCBA, MEd
It is no secret that the cost of collegiate education in the United States is astronomically expensive. On average it takes 8-12 years of college to earn a doctoral degree in clinical psychology and, in the process, scholars typically accrue roughly 200,000 dollars in student debt. Keeping these daunting numbers in mind, unpaid practicum experiences make this bleak financial situation even more troublesome for doctoral students.
For example, the PsyD program I am attending mandates students earn 20-hours of practicum experience per week, for 2 consecutive years. This equates to one year of full-time unpaid work. Put simply, unpaid practicum models create a continuously revolving door of free doctoral student labor from universities to outside organizations.
Is this ethical?
The table below is a series of arguments generally used by clinical psychology doctoral programs to justify unpaid practicum experiences. Followed by corresponding retorts responding to each argument individually.
| Rationale opposing compensation | Response to raised concern |
| During the practicum experience candidates are considered “students” and not “employees,” thus should not be paid. | Moot point if external placement site agrees to pay the practicum student for their work output. “Students” are often paid for other experiences during collegiate coursework. Examples include: outside employment, work study, graduate assistantships, and student teaching positions. |
| Practicum experience is a learning experience where the student is “observing” more than conducting “work related tasks.” | This assumes practicum students conduct fewer professional work tasks than the external sites “employees.” This idea that practicum students watch and do less work is frequently not true. More often than not, they are completing the same job obligations as other employees but not getting paid. Putting students at an external site and asking them to “do less” work than their coworkers, limits their experience and dilutes their ability to put what they know into practice, which is the objective of a practicum placement. If a student possesses the experience to perform high-level work-related tasks which are generally compensated, they should be encouraged to do so, and reimbursed in the process. |
| Liability falls on the shoulders of the doctoral program, should a practicum student engage in an ethical violation. | To avoid this outcome, a liability waiver or, “hold harmless agreement” is signed by the student, university, and placement site. This explicitly indicates that should an ethical violation occur; the practicum student and site hold sole responsibility in handling such an instance. Ensuring that the doctoral program is in no way held liable or accountable. |
| Possibility of some students acquiring paid practicum experiences creates a tumultuous unequitable environment among students in doctoral programs. | No two students in the program enter with identical experiences and educational backgrounds. Equitability is celebrating students’ uniqueness and providing them with the opportunity to expand on their existing experience to ultimately achieve their professional goals. Equitability in this instance, is not establishing an equal un-individualized array of placement options, which all students can enter regardless of previous experience and interest. Rather, equitability is looking at each student’s situation individually when aligning them to a specific site and opportunity that plays off their existing strengths to improve their idiosyncratic professional development. |
| Unpaid practicum is generally the standard in doctoral programs. | The APA emphasizes improving ethicality through advocating for positive systemic change in the face of an unjust system. Moving toward paid practicum experiences is a demonstration of positive change. |
| Practicum placements are meant to help students expand upon existing skills. Placing students at sites where they could have been hired prior to any program involvement, does not grant students an opportunity to further their existing skill set. | Site responsibilities vary drastically depending on the type of placement: inpatient, outpatient, school, hospital, community non-profit, etc. It is a good thing when students entering a doctoral program have the requisite education, certification, and/or licensure to be hired at a given practicum site.Integration and application of knowledge is the objective of a practicum experience. Qualified students can bring the new skills they have learned in their doctoral program into previous professional roles. This indicates professional progress of the student, if they can take new skills learned during their doctoral coursework and implement them at a practicum placement conducive to mental health treatment. |
I hope the arguments articulated above will nudge doctoral programs in the direction of allowing students to earn compensation during practicum placements when possible (granted scholars and sites are abiding by APA supervision guidelines as outlined in section C-12 D of the APA code). This subtle shift in program policy, although it does not solve everything, is a tangible step toward making programs more affordable for students. Paid practicum resolves the issue of students being volun-told by university faculty as to where they must work for a year without compensation. Instead, it places autonomy and power into students’ hands, and a year’s wages into their pockets.
Unpaid internships and practicum placements are a cross-disciplinary problem throughout academia. They propagate economic disparity, as only financially well-off students are able to work without pay for substantial durations of time. Through this cycle, affluent students’ resumes look more appealing than their middle- and lower-class peers, because their peers cannot afford to work without pay during internship or practicum experiences. This gives affluent students an upper hand in securing higher paying jobs in the future, due to the experience they can afford to gain. As mental health practitioners who advocate for equitable access to higher education, healthy work-life-balance, and mitigation of income inequality, there is no better space for this change to transpire than in our field.
About the author: Michael J. Deely, NCSP, BCBA, MEd
I am currently a doctoral student at Point Park University studying clinical psychology. Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you would like to view a more in depth version of the article which outlines additional arguments in support of paid practicum experiences and compares them directly to the APA’s practicum guidelines, please email me. I am happy to pass along more detailed information!
From the Editor: Thank you for reading the gradPSYCH Blog! Please note that the views and opinions expressed in each blog post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent positions or policies of APAGS or the APA. The information provided is for general informational purposes only.