how much to pay interns for a Summer job?

[Acer]

PeterB wrote:
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say: $0.

I think it all really boils down to what you want them to get out of it. Unfortunately, nowadays, that's how a lot of students think: "what am I going to get out of this?" ... they just care about the bottom line, and if they feel they're not going to get something out of something, they won't bother with it. If you make it expressly clear from the get-go that they should be doing this for the experience and not the money, then you will weed out the applicants for whom the desire is mostly to get paid. You can always reward those who are willing to do it for $0 with some sort of stipend or bonus at the end... but you want to make sure the motivation (and therefore incentive) for working with you is the right one. (If they really want to do it but cannot afford to be working full-time without pay because they're not living with their parents or something similar, you can always negotiate something with them... you just want to make sure that their desire to work with you is an honest one.)

Edit: oh and someone mentioned mentorship. That's precisely what the students should be getting out of it, IMHO.

The feds have something to say about this. If interns perform real work, you owe them at least minimum wage. Unpaid internships are for observing and learning, not producing. S-T's interns will be doing real work.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm