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For the sake of argument, suppose that unpaid internships were outlawed. The large firms are already paying for interns and will continue to do so. Those with rich parents who could afford to pay top whack for expensive educations at prestigious schools, and who furthermore have contacts with people in the big firms, will continue to get a disproportionate chunk of those internships. But the bright and ambitious youngster who perforce went, say, to a cheapo state school and whose resume gets promptly binned by the large firms has to look elsewhere: he hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell at these places. He can offer himself to the ten-man outfit but that outfit may not have the wherewithal to pay for an internship -- though they'd be more than happy to take him on for free. The youngster desperately needs work experience. And so to my thinking, insistence on paid internships actually ends up exacerbating class differences, makes it more difficult for the meritorious lower-class person to climb the ladder.