Turning today’s internship demand into tomorrow’s competitive advantage.
It was more than 30 years ago when I first started working with high school students to place them into summer and year-round internships within some of Boston’s largest employers. The experiences proved life-changing for both my students and for me personally. Yet the most significant impact was seen in the workplace itself.
In the San Diego region today, the typical entry-level recruitment process can cost an employer around $3,000 per employee hired (if all goes smoothly). A relocation package to our region can average $20,000–$30,000 per employee hired (if you can convince an entry-level employee to relocate to such a high-cost region). Relocation packages for more experienced employees run much higher. These costs are significant and rising in an economy where all costs are significant and rising.
San Diego employers need to recognize now what Boston’s employers recognized more than three decades ago—that in the ongoing and increasing battle for talented workers, our greatest assets are the young people sitting in classrooms at local schools and growing up in our neighborhoods. But with the summer of 2026 as our benchmark, we have a very long way to go.
First, let me start with the good news: Over the course of this summer—with support from the Prebys Foundation, Price Philanthropies, U.S. Bank, Bank of America, Mesa College, Taylor Guitars, Cubic, Oceanside Chamber of Commerce, and others—our team at San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation was able to place 83 post-secondary-age interns into 55 local businesses. I cannot thank our business and philanthropic partners enough for their support.
These are 83 young people from the San Diego community who now have a competitive advantage over their peers when it comes to the careers they prepare for and pursue in the future. These students were sourced from our Verified Programs: the local colleges, universities, and community colleges that work with our team and the business community (throughout the year) to make sure that their academic programs are verified and approved by local businesses. This means that many of these students have ended the summer and returned to academic programs where their work-based learning will be amplified and accelerated in the classroom. Others are heading out into the workforce with more marketable and desirable skills and experience. And some were already hired full-time by the employers they interned with.
It is worth noting that 67% of those placed this summer are first-generation college students and 72% of them are people of color. It is also worth noting that 100% of them are better prepared for tomorrow.
Yet it is not really the students placed or the businesses already engaged that we should be thinking about. While we were able to place a few dozen students into paid internships, more than 1,400 applied for these same spots. For every 17 students looking to work we were only able to secure one spot. This is where our real opportunity lies.
I would like to think that the other 1,317 students found different jobs—but the summer of 2026 proved to be the most difficult on record for young people seeking employment. We can hope that their summers presented them with other options for work-based learning, mentorship, and paid work experiences—but hope has never been a particularly effective workforce or economic development strategy.
The summer of 2027 is only about 250 days away. Our team and many other education, non-profit, and community-based organizations throughout the region have already begun the time-consuming work to prepare for next summer, in hopes of placing hundreds more of our local students into quality internship opportunities. What we should all be striving to do together is ensure that we find and secure a placement for every student who applies.
This winter, our Talent team will be hosting a forum for all interested parties to come together and talk about the need for a more cohesive, collaborative, and effective internship effort as the cornerstone of our regional talent strategy. I know that there are hundreds of San Diego-based companies that run their own internship programs—many of them are part of EDC’s investor base. If you represent one of these businesses, we would love to work with you to ensure more local students and residents find their way into the cohorts you employ. I know there are local philanthropic leaders willing to work by your sides to align their assets to ensure the broadest and most impactful benefit to the San Diego community. And I know there are dozens of practitioners who have been working to ensure that young people in all corners of our community are prepared and ready for internships and work-based learning experiences in our local economy.
Who we invest in today will be reflected in who we grow to become tomorrow. Together, we can create a real and lasting competitive advantage for our San Diego economy, our community, and our future.
Mark Cafferty
President & CEO