Students who are seeking entry level jobs or internships are almost always going to prefer the opportunity that offers the greatest paying should everything else be equal. While virtually no student is going to be willing to accept an entry level job that is unpaid, many and perhaps most accept internships that are unpaid because they recognize that it is far more important to get great experience during an internship than a great paycheck. Better experience as an intern leads directly to far better pay when you're seeking an entry level job, so the investment is quite wise.

But what about employers who want to charge students for the opportunity to intern with them? When I first heard about the idea, I assumed that the internships were most likely scams. Well, some may be but some definitely are not. As reported by Campus Career Counselor, students are paying $2,000 to $5,000 for the right to intern with firms such as Morgan Stanley, NBC, Miramax, WebMD, and Electronic Arts. To be clear, these firms have excellent reputations on-campus and deservedly so and they are not profiting from the sale of these internships. What they are doing is donating the right to intern with them to charities such as elite private high schools and those charities are in turn auctioning or otherwise selling the internships to the students.

Who is buying these internships? Well, that's a little unclear but it appears that parents of students who attend the elite private high schools are purchasing the internships to help their children impress college admissions personnel. To me, this is another example of crazy behavior by helicopter parents (the term is a reference to the mostly Baby Boomer-aged parents habit of always hovering over their kids). I've heard many stories of helicopter parents networking for their kids. I've heard some stories about helicopter parents accompanying their kids to interviews. I've heard one or two stories about helicopter parents even walking into the interview room with their kids. But I had not heard of helicopter or any other parents purchasing entry level jobs or internships for their kids.

Does anyone else think that this is as crazy as I do?