Writing internships?

[DIGEST Jason Pare <Jason_Pare_at_Tech-Pubs -at- CCMAILPC -dot- CTRON -dot- COM>]

Hi all,

On behalf of my little brother and mentor, I am stepping out of the cybershadows
to elicit advice from those of you "in the know".

My brother is a communications major with a concentration in professional
writing at Fitchburg State College here in central massachusetts. He is a part-
time co-op with Cabletron Systems (my employer) doing QA for the SPECTRUM
multivendor enterprise management software platform. In addition to the obvious
advantages of a paid internship, he is learning valuable telecommunications and
computer experience (UNIX, windows NT, etc).

He plans to do another internship for his final term next fall, and would like
to find an opportunity where he can gain some professional writing experience.

The catch is that his school does not allow communications majors to gain
college credits through paid interships (he is currently operating under the
unwritten "don't ask, don't tell" clause). A 40 hour/week unpaid internship will
be no small feat for a 24 year-old full-time student, full-time employee,
father, and head of household.

Thanks for you patience. Here come the questions.

Is anyone familiar with the college internship policies of their employer?

Is it a common practice for writing-based internships to be unpaid? Has anyone
successfully sidestepped this policy?

I know that this list reaches a wide audience. Would I be violating the rules of
this forum by asking if anyone is aware of any paying opportunities in the
Boston/metro west region for this kid? He's a young go-getter with strong
writing skills, DTP (FrameMaker, Ventura, Lotus, Word),  multimedia authoring
(IconAuthor), and html experience.
If I am out of line, I apologize in advance.

Respond to me if you wish, or to my bro at bpare -at- fsc -dot- edu -dot- 

Thanks,
Jason