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The U.S. Department of Labor has provided new guidance for businesses offering unpaid student internships, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported April 22.

The rules are culled from the Fair Labor Standards Act and have their roots in a 1947 U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving railroad company trainees.

Under the guidelines, the internship experience must be “similar to training which would be given in an educational environment,” the Labor Department said. “The more an internship program is structured around a classroom or academic experience as opposed to the employer’s actual operations, the more likely the internship will be viewed as an extension of the individual’s educational experience.”

For the internship to be legal, it must be “for the benefit of the intern” and meet these additional standards: the intern works under close staff supervision and does not displace regular employees, the employer derives no immediate advantage from and may in fact be impeded by the intern, the intern is not necessarily entitled to a job after the internship, and the employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages.