A majority of this year’s upcoming university grads, 62%, took part in an internship sometime in their college career, the National Association of Colleges and Employers reported. More than half of the internships, 59%, were paid.

“Many employers use their internship programs to feed their full-time hiring efforts,” Shawn VanDerziel, NACE executive director, said in a press release. “Providing pay not only enables the employer to give the intern ‘real work’ — and therefore be better able to gauge the student’s abilities for full-time work — but it also means the employer can attract a larger, more diverse and inclusive pool of candidates for their internships.”

VanDerziel said paid internships can be an avenue to a successful career.

“Our research consistently shows that students who participate in paid internships not only get more job offers than their peers in unpaid internships, but we also see a relationship between a paid internship and a higher starting salary,” he said.

Paid interns averaged 1.4 job offers and unpaid interns averaged 0.9, according to the survey. In addition, those with paid internships had a median starting salary of $67,500 compared to a median of $45,000 for those who had taken part in unpaid internships.

However, white students and male students are disproportionally represented among paid interns. Among men taking part in internships, 76.4% were paid compared to 51.5% of women taking part in internships who were paid.

“It’s important that we recognize the inequities that exist and take steps to correct those,” VanDerziel said.

NACE’s study took place from March 15 to May 19 and included 18,966 bachelor’s degree-level students. Among those, 2,307 identified as graduating seniors.