'We All Need Coins, You Know?': How College Students View Paid Mentorship

Although not a universal practice, many U.S. postsecondary mentoring programs employ paid student mentors as part of a structured student-to-student (peer) mentoring model. Limited research has explored how student mentees view paid mentorship and if mentees can detect whether their mentor is paid or unpaid through mentor behavior. This qualitative study focused on in-depth interviews conducted with 13 first-year, first-generation mentees of Color attending a predominantly White institution in the U.S. South to learn how these student mentees view paid mentorship in relation to unpaid, volunteer mentorship. Findings suggest that student mentees feel mentors should be paid and that paid mentoring is a financial benefit in contributing to financing a peer's education. Student mentees also indicated they could detect paid mentors through mentor behavior. Student mentees also thought that a mentor's paid status might influence how they, mentees, interacted with the mentor, making a distinction between volunteer mentors who are seen as more caring and compassionate than paid mentors, who are viewed as merely performing mandatory duties, displaying what mentees felt was inauthentic behavior. This paper will address implications for research, practice, and paid and unpaid mentoring praxis.