Paid internships for students: who pays whom? (I got it backwards)
· 7 min read · by Rahul Dhileep Kumar
In first year I paid for an internship that was really a training course. A guide to paid internships for students: who should pay whom, internship red flags, a real internship checklist, and why building projects taught me more.
Cover photo: Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
In my first year of college, I got an internship.
At least, that's what I called it.
I paid for it.
Read that again. I paid for an internship.
This post is about paid internships for students.
Specifically, which direction the money is supposed to flow.
Spoiler: towards you.
It's also a list of internship red flags.
I ignored all of them, so you don't have to.
What an internship is supposed to be
Let's start with the boring definition.
Wikipedia calls an internship a period of work experience with an organisation.
It's for a limited time.
It can be paid, unpaid, or partly paid through a stipend.
Notice what's missing from that list.
"Intern pays the company" is not an option.
Real paid internships for students mean the company pays you.
Sometimes it's a proper salary. Sometimes a modest stipend.
Unpaid internships exist too, and they're a separate debate.
But a fee? That's a course.
The first-year brain
Let me explain my thinking at the time.
I was a first-year student.
Everyone was talking about internships.
Internships meant experience. Experience meant jobs.
So when an "internship" appeared, I jumped.
There was a fee.
I assumed that's just how it worked.
It is not how it works.
The slow realisation
The title said Web Developer Intern.
What actually happened looked a lot like a training programme.
It took me months to see it clearly.
Not because I'm slow.
Okay, maybe a little slow.
Mostly because I wanted it to be real.
When you want something badly, you ignore the red flags.
Even when they're waving at you.
Photo: Emil Kalibradov on Unsplash
Paid internships for students vs paid training courses
Here's the difference in a table, because I'm a product person now.
This is the general pattern, not a review of any one company.
| Question | Real internship | Course wearing a lanyard |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays whom? | They pay you, or nobody does | You pay them |
| What do you do? | Real tasks for a real team | Set modules and assignments |
| Who guides you? | A mentor who knows your name | Whoever runs the batch |
| What do you get? | Work someone actually uses | A certificate |
| Do you learn things? | Yes | Often, yes |
Training is not evil.
Paying for learning is fine.
The problem is the label.
A course sold as an internship sets the wrong expectations.
It also looks a bit odd on your CV once you know better.
A useful test, borrowed from US labour law
The US Department of Labor has a neat way to think about this.
Its Fact Sheet #71 describes a "primary beneficiary test".
Courts use it to decide whether an unpaid intern is really an employee.
It's American law, so it decides nothing in India.
But the questions are brilliant for any student, anywhere.
- Is everyone clear about whether there's pay?
- Is the training like what you'd get in education?
- Is it tied to your coursework or academic credit?
- Does it fit around your academic calendar?
- Does your work complement paid staff, rather than replace them?
My own add-on is simpler.
If the company's only gain from you is your fee, you're a customer.
Not an intern. A customer.
Internship red flags for first-year students in India
First-year internships in India are a strange market.
Everyone wants experience. Very few places want first-years.
That gap is where the fee-charging stuff lives.
Some of it is honest training with a confusing name.
Some of it is outright fraud.
In March 2026, IIT Roorkee warned students about unauthorised paid internship offers.
Those offers claimed a link to the institute that didn't exist.
IIT Bhubaneswar flagged a fake scheme misusing its summer internship name.
Its advice: don't pay any fees, and don't share personal details.
So here are the red flags I'd watch for:
- A registration, training or "certificate" fee. The biggest one, by far.
- No named mentor. Just a "batch" and a group chat.
- Hundreds of "interns" at once. No real team can supervise that.
- Vague work. No project, no team, just "modules".
- Urgency. "Only three seats left" is a sales tactic, not hiring.
- The certificate is the main selling point. Real internships sell the work.
Now the good news.
There's a free option run by the government.
The AICTE Internship Portal is an initiative of AICTE and the Ministry of Education.
Its homepage says registration, applications and the completion certificate cost students ₹0.
It also says anyone charging you to apply through it is running a scam.
That's the government telling you not to pay.
Listen to it. First-year me could have used that memo.
My real internship checklist
Here's the checklist I wish someone had handed me in first year.
- Who pays whom? If money flows from you to them, it's training.
- What will you actually build? "Exposure" is not a deliverable.
- Who will you work with? Real teams, or a batch of fifty students?
- Will your work be used? Real internships ship real things.
- Can you talk to a past intern? Not a testimonial. An actual human.
- What's on the offer letter? Dates, role, stipend and a real company address.
If the answers are vague, walk away.
Learning is great.
Paying for learning is fine.
Just call it what it is.
I'm still annoyed (at myself)
Not at them. At myself.
I paid for a lesson I could've learned for free.
The lesson is simple.
If you pay them, it's a course. If they pay you, it's a job.
That's it. That's the whole lesson.
You're welcome. No fee required.
Was it a complete waste? No, and I won't pretend it was.
I learned some web basics.
I learned how these programmes are sold.
Most of all, I learned to ask better questions.
Expensive lessons stick.
That's their only advantage.
Building real projects taught me more
Funny thing.
The real experience didn't come from that "internship".
It came from building things myself.
An outsourced build of our app came back looking like 2006.
So I built Track My Academy myself.
The web app and the Android app are live.
The iOS app is coming soon.
It's now published by TrackMy Tech, where I'm Executive Director.
At CP Sports, I built the organisation's first official website.
Then came Veeran, a tournament engine for organisers.
Registrations, public and admin workflows, media management and AI photo features.
It also ruined how I watch football.
I volunteered as a full stack developer for Paradox at IIT Madras.
Hackathons counted too. Two ended with awards, which still surprises me.
None of that cost a registration fee.
It cost sleep instead.
Some nights my dad opens the gate at 1 a.m.
Once it cost a whole night, when I broke production.
Honestly, I'm still not sure which is more expensive.
Photo: Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash
If you're in first year, here's my honest advice.
Skip the fee. Build one real thing that people use.
Then apply for real paid internships with that project in hand.
It's a far better CV line than a certificate.
FAQ
Are paid internships for students legit?
If the company pays you, usually yes.
If you pay the company, it's a training course with a nicer name.
Check which way the money flows before anything else.
How do first-year students in India find real internships?
Start with your college placement cell and the AICTE Internship Portal.
Both are free.
Build one solid project first, so you have something to show.
Is it ever okay to pay for training?
Absolutely. Good courses are useful.
Just know you're buying a course, not an internship.
List it under courses on your CV, not experience.
What to do next
Switching streams too? Read how I went from bio-maths to computer science.
Want to see what building looks like? Have a look at Track My Academy.
Or book a call and ask me anything about internships.
No registration fee. Obviously.