I never said anything about internships being a source of cheap labor. Please don't put words in my mouth. While yes, an intern typically makes less than a ful

I never said anything about internships being a source of cheap labor. Please don't put words in my mouth. While yes, an intern typically makes less than a full-time engineer, you have to realize that the intern reduces the productivity of the host engineer, who has to spend time training the intern, looking over the intern's work, and so forth. The real value in the internship program is that it essentially creates a extended interview process after which we can evaluate the individual (given firsthand experience of how they operate in a work environment), and the individual can evaluate the company.