These Are the Best-Paying Internships in America

(Bloomberg) -- Most teenagers are happy if they earn $10 an hour at their summer job, but the lucky few who land an internship at Facebook Inc. will be pulling in $8,000 a month. The social media company offers America's best-paying internships, according to a new survey by Glassdoor.

Tech companies dominated the salary website's ranking of the 25 most lucrative internships, taking 8 of the top 10 spots. To compile the list, Glassdoor reviewed companies that had at least 25 median monthly salary reports for U.S.-based interns from April 2016 to April 2017.

Banks didn't rank nearly as high as the tech companies. Bank of America Corp.'s median monthly pay was $4,570, and Deutsche Bank AG offered $4,640, Glassdoor found.

The study generally echoed a survey of Silicon Valley interns conducted last year by Rodney Folz. Folz's results for Facebook and Microsoft Corp. were almost identical to those of Glassdoor. He found that interns were paid a median of $6,000 a month at Intuit Inc., compared with the $5,440 Glassdoor quoted, and his finding for Google interns was slightly higher than Glassdoor's. While Folz's data focused on internships in the engineering, management, and design sectors, Glassdoor's included internships in a variety of fields, such as client services, human resources, and advertising operations.

The highest-paying non-tech company on the list was Exxon Mobil Corp., which came in third with a median monthly paycheck of $6,507. A former intern praised the oil company for its focus on professional development and management style. 

In addition to the generous paychecks, some interns had their lodging, meals, and transportation covered. Since many of these internships are based in the San Francisco area, where rents are notoriously high, free housing is a major perk.

The national average wage index is $48,098, or about $4,000 a month. That's half the salary of a Facebook intern.

To contact the author of this story: Polly Mosendz in New York at pmosendz@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Josh Petri at jpetri4@bloomberg.net.