A partnership with Handshake is one effort to connect local talent with companies.
Internships can be a meaningful step in a college student’s career development. That’s why the commonwealth of Virginia is working to guarantee that undergraduates have a fair shot at paid experiential learning.
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership announced a new collaboration today with the job board Handshake as part of the state’s effort to train and retain local talent through internship opportunities.
Virginia has committed to giving all undergraduate students at least one form of meaningful work-based learning before graduation, said Megan Healy, senior vice president of talent and workforce strategy at VEDP. Overseen by the Virginia Talent and Opportunity Partnership, this work-based learning could include experiential learning or a paid internship.
The partnership with Handshake is one layer of a multifaceted approach to increasing opportunities for entry-level applicants to break into local job markets, helping to reduce brain drain and encourage economic development for evolving local markets.
State of play: Internships provide students with skills and experience for future careers, but for many of them paid internships remain out of reach. A 2024 report from the Business–Higher Education Forum found that nearly half of students who wanted an internship didn’t participate in one, and of those who did, only 70 percent said it was a “high-quality experience.”
A 2025 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that 38 percent of respondents believe their college should emphasize helping them find and access paid internships to enhance career services, and 30 percent want help making strong connections with potential employers.
Virginia has recently seen a dramatic drop in available internship listings; when President Trump took office in January, he slashed the federal workforce, reducing available roles in the D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia region. Internship postings dropped 36 percent in June 2025 compared to June 2024, according to Lightcast data—a 20-percentage-point-greater decline compared to similar metropolitan job markets.
VEDP’s partnership with Handshake includes data sharing within the platform and additional visibility into existing or future internship opportunities for students.
Over 70 percent of colleges and universities in Virginia, representing 470,000 students, already connect to Handshake, said Christine Cruzvergara, the company’s chief education officer. In addition, 20,000 Virginia employers have posted more than 150,000 jobs and internships on the platform.
Building better internships: One of Virginia’s goals is to develop opportunities for students outside of metropolitan hubs.
“The state of Virginia is very diverse, and the majority of students that graduate from a lot of the Virginia schools end up going to Richmond or Northern Virginia—those are the two main hubs that most students go to,” said Cruzvergara, a former Virginia resident and college administrator herself. “But there are so many other regions of Virginia that also need amazing talent, and I think this particular initiative is going to help distribute more of that talent.”
The state is partnering with local business in more rural areas—including near Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and in Charlottesville, where the University of Virginia is located—to establish more high-impact and paid internships to attract students from these universities.
“We’re also looking at ways to connect students from those specific institutions,” Healy of VEDP said. “They also have the most out-of-state students because they’re very popular and very highly ranked.” Link to Article