| This study acknowledges the substantial benefits made available to students from their participation in internships, and focuses on the problems community college accounting students face regarding access to internships. Although community college accounting students may actively seek to take advantage of internship opportunities, most employers are not recruiting students for accounting internships until junior year or higher. These businesses are invariably excluding community college students when hiring to fill an internship position. This study attempts to identify the underlying reasons why this situation exists, and to determine how to make community college internship opportunities more accessible and effective for accounting students.;The purpose of this study was to identify and capture best practices for community college accounting internships, and to formulate these best practices into a model internship design for community college accounting students. Although the scholarly literature revealed many relevant best practices with the potential to benefit all post-secondary institutions, the research did not address the issues specific to community college accounting students. To address these issues, this study interviewed community college career center staff and employers participating in accounting internship programs. The interviews were conducted to identify specific strategies resulting in more accessible and effective internship programs for community college accounting students. The interview findings, combined with best practices from the literature review, were synthesized to formulate a model internship design for community college accounting students.;The model internship design addressed the community college viewpoint to give specific recommendations regarding what community colleges can do for students and employers to increase student access to effective accounting internships. The model internship design took the employer viewpoint to give specific recommendations regarding what employers can do for students and community colleges to increase student access to internships and to make them more effective. Community colleges and employers are encouraged to use this study and its model internship design as a versatile tool to open the benefits of internships to deserving community college accounting students. |
