It’s time to start paying nursing students for clinical internships

Imagine this: You are a nursing student who just spent 12 hours in the hospital. They have administered medications, helped with patient care, recorded vital signs and are now dragging themselves home without being paid. Your friends in business, finance, and technology return from their summer internships (paid, of course) and talk about how they’re using their extra money to fund their spring breaks or fun weekends on the town. In the meantime, you’re offering real healthcare for nothing more than “experience.”

This is the reality for nursing students. Clinical training is one of the University of Michigan School of Nursing’s graduation requirements and, while primarily educational, focuses on providing real patient care – work that would be paid in the real world. The nursing school should either compensate students, reduce tuition, or provide a scholarship to support nursing students.

Nursing school students work between 10 and 36 clinical hours per week. As a nursing student myself, we receive far fewer credit hours than we actually work. Three to five credit hours are awarded for the 10- to 12-hour shifts we work—not to mention the amount of simulation lab hours, coursework, and reflections we complete outside of clinical classes. We also have to pay for the transport, parking and material costs at the individual clinic sites ourselves. Additionally, some nursing students, as well as students in all disciplines, work part-time jobs due to the high cost of living for a student.

Paid nursing technician positions at local hospitals are open to students who have previously met some introductory nursing requirements, as classroom and clinical knowledge is incorporated into the position. Prospective employees browsing these job postings may find that many of the duties of nursing students—such as taking blood pressure, recording entries and exits, and responding to ringing tones—are consistent with those of patient care technicians and nursing assistants at University Hospital. It is unreasonable that nursing students are required to perform the same duties as patient care technicians but are not compensated for necessary patient care.

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, nursing student Gina Kim discussed the challenges that come with her field of study.

“As a nurse and nursing student, many of my responsibilities overlap,” Kim said. “It’s frustrating doing almost the same thing and getting paid for one thing and not the other. I lose over $100 every clinical day because that’s how much I would make if I was paid. That’s a lot each week that I could be saving on rent and groceries instead.”

While some may argue that students should not be paid because they are not yet licensed, it is worth considering that students like Kim are already paid for similar work at their hospitals. Given this, there is no clear reason why they should not be paid for their work as students.

With nearly 100,000 nursing students across the country, it can be daunting to even think about subsidizing each student’s costs as if they were a student employee. However, other institutions have figured this out with different financial strategies. Last year, Australia successfully mandated that from July 2025 not only nursing students, but also student teachers, midwives and social workers must be paid $320 per week to ensure student welfare.

Some American universities have also begun to address this problem: Mercy College of Ohio, just an hour from the University of Michigan, successfully implemented a paid student program last January in collaboration with its hospital colleague Mercy Health. Although this particular program only supports seven students in exchange for future employment, it is still a step toward paid clinics – or at least clinics with a stipend – for more students across the country.

The reality is that nursing students have enough on their plate. We juggle a lot between hitting those 1,000 required clinical hours, studying for exams, and possibly getting a part-time job. We can’t just pick up a shift at a local coffee shop – our classes can start bright and early at 6:30 a.m. and last until 4:30 p.m. Nursing school requires time, focus, and a deep compassion for the people we care for, and it demands these things every day.

If nursing students received a scholarship or even a discount on tuition, it would ease the financial burden that many of us feel. We could worry less about rent or paying for groceries and focus more on becoming better nurses. Reducing financial burden would also have a significant impact on the mental and physical health of nursing students. While it is important to maintain UM funding within the hospital system to maintain the quality of care, even a small amount of financial support can keep students motivated and, more importantly, encourage more people to consider the profession. And let’s face it: As healthcare faces one of the greatest workforce crises in history, we should be doing everything we can to support and retain future nurses.

Nursing students don’t expect to make a fortune; We just want some recognition for the work we do and the impact we have on patient care. Compensation can come in many forms, be it an hourly wage, a reduction in tuition fees, or a stipend to cover basic living expenses. Something as simple as a small financial boost could go a long way toward making nursing school more accessible and less stressful.

Colleges like the University of Michigan have the opportunity to set new standards. Imagine being able to say that our nursing program not only prepares students for the real world, but also values ​​their work enough to get paid. It’s a win-win: students get the support they need and the school takes the lead in addressing the nursing shortage in concrete and tangible ways.

Next time you hear someone say that nursing students should only be satisfied with the experience they receive in the clinic, remind them that experience is great, but it doesn’t pay rent. The university must begin valuing nursing students for their critical role and work toward making nursing school more accessible through paid clinical trials.

Leah Huang is an opinion columnist who writes about the challenges of being a healthcare student in her column “Vital Signs.” She can be reached at [email protected].

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