College students continue to vie for coveted Wall Street internships over the summer, and for good reason: Unlike internships in many other industries, they come with a fat paycheck. Fast Company cites a recent Glassdoor ranking of the top-paying US internships, a list in which finance companies "performed extremely well." Of the seven that made Glassdoor's top 25, median monthly pay is well above $6,000 (meaning the equivalent of a $72,000 annual salary). The top contender on that list, Capital One, offered a number closer to $8,400, which would clear six figures over the course of a year.
But Bloomberg found perhaps the most stunning example of all: trading platform Jane Street, which pays its interns an average salary of $16,356 per month—close to $200,000 if they toiled away the entire year. That outlet notes Wall Street is in fierce competition for workers of late, after a "particularly tough recruitment year" in a sector rife with turnover and workweeks that can reach 100 hours, and in an industry competing with the allure of private equity firms and hipper tech companies.
Per stats from the Wall Street Oasis finance site, the world's biggest investment banks upped intern pay this year by 37.2% compared to a year earlier; other big banks saw a 36.9% boost. At the top of the list in terms of intern pay: high-frequency trading firms, proprietary trading companies, and hedge funds. "These are record numbers for intern pay," WSO founder Patrick Curtis says, noting he hasn't seen compensation growth this high since he debuted his site more than 15 years ago. (More internship stories.)