"Go to school in a city and you'll have an easier time landing internships" is common advice, and it's not wrong -- there's real economic evidence behind it. But the schools that actually deliver on it got there with more than a good zip code, and that distinction matters for how much weight you should put on location alone.

The economic case for proximity is real

A 2020 NBER study by Jaeger, Nunley, Seals, and Wilbrandt ran the first large-scale resume audit of the internship market: 576 fictitious candidate profiles submitted to more than 11,500 real internship postings, with details like distance from the firm randomly varied. The finding: applicants who lived farther from the employer were significantly less likely to get a positive response, holding everything else about the application constant. This lines up with what you'd expect mechanically -- employers weigh the logistics of interviews and onsite work, and students weigh the cost of relocating or commuting for a role that's often unpaid or low-paid. Being physically close to where the jobs are is a genuine advantage, not just a feeling.

What that looks like at schools built around it

Two schools illustrate what proximity can produce when a university also invests in it directly. George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., was ranked #1 among 650 surveyed schools for "Best Internships" by the Princeton Review, with more than 65% of a recent graduating class completing an internship or co-op and over 15,000 internship, job, and service listings available through the university's own placement platform. Northeastern University, built around a mandatory co-op model in Boston, reports that 95% of undergraduates complete at least one co-op, is ranked #1 nationally for co-ops and internships by U.S. News, and maintains 651 employer partners as of the 2024-25 academic year. For comparison, Gallup's national survey found that only about 41% of all college students complete an internship by graduation -- and just 36% at public universities specifically. GW and Northeastern are landing internships at meaningfully higher rates than the national norm.

But it's not really about the city itself

Here's the more useful reframe: location is doing some of the work, but not most of it. A 2026 Sociological Science study tracking three decades of internship data found that participation has more than doubled since the mid-1990s, yet the gains weren't distributed evenly -- students with the highest family income, college-educated parents, and enrollment at more selective or private colleges consistently participated more, and that gap persisted or widened over time rather than closing. Private colleges, the same research notes, carry endowments per student roughly seven times larger than public colleges on average -- funding exactly the kind of dedicated career coaching and employer-relationship infrastructure that turns "we're in a city" into "we place 65-95% of students." GW's GWork platform and Northeastern's century-old, purpose-built co-op division didn't happen automatically because of their addresses -- they're the product of sustained institutional investment that a school without that investment wouldn't replicate just by also being located in a city.

The real tradeoff for students outside major cities

None of this means location is irrelevant for students at smaller or more rural schools -- there are fewer employers physically nearby, and the NBER findings above mean even remote applications to distant employers get answered less often, all else equal. Relocating or commuting for an internship, especially an unpaid one, is a real cost that falls disproportionately on students without the financial cushion to absorb it. That's a genuine structural disadvantage, not something to wave away -- but it's a reason to specifically evaluate a school's career-services investment and employer network rather than assume the location itself is destiny in either direction.

What this means for you

  • Being in a major city is a real, evidenced advantage for internship access, not just a vibe -- the proximity effect shows up in controlled research, not just anecdote, and it's part of why a handful of schools are now opening satellite campuses in cities like New York and San Francisco.
  • Don't stop at "urban vs. not." Ask any school directly for its actual internship or co-op participation rate and the size of its employer network -- GW and Northeastern's numbers come from deliberate infrastructure, not just their addresses, and a school without that infrastructure won't automatically match them even in the same city.
  • If you're weighing a smaller or non-urban school, ask specifically how it helps students land internships elsewhere -- employer partnerships, funded relocation support, or a strong alumni network can meaningfully offset a location disadvantage. For more on how alumni networks specifically factor in, see our piece on whether alumni network size should factor into your decision.
  • Factor in the real cost of an unpaid or low-paid internship away from campus -- housing, transportation, and lost income from a paid job you'd otherwise have. This cost lands hardest on students choosing between a distant unpaid opportunity and a closer paid one.

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