I assume a company in fashion journalism's model is "we sell to rich, well-connected people so we want to employ the kids rich and well-connected people who will be able to appreciate the needs of our customer base, not to mention make the right connections for us too." Using money to screen out the unqualified candidates sounds sensible. Next they should require that the money paid comes from your parents and is not yours.

OK, I was intending to be snarky and cynical but re-reading that...apart from the last sentence it probably is their plan!

There is a racket in Ivey league schools where students with bad grades will pay for help getting internships.

These middle men will the go pay companies to secure internships.

I’d expect more of this happening as the divide between rich and poor deepens.

Whaaaa? What kind of shit company would take a loser on board for a paltry payout,m

Its to rigged to fail. You dont hire the son or the daughter, you are networking with the father.

Startups

Not if we use the force of government to flat out ban the practice.

Weiden Kennedy actually did that with http://www.wk.com/campaign/wk_

I’m not sure it’s totally a bad thing. You get to work for a renowned agency. The problem is that it excludes skilled people who don’t already have money

Among authors, Yog's Law is widely known. I assure you it applies to every field:

“Money flows toward the writer.”

or, to generalize:

Money flows towards the people doing the work.

Anything which involves the other direction is a scam of some kind. If Weiden Kennedy thinks that they are so awesome that people should pay them to learn from them, the legitimate thing to do is to open a school, not pretend that they are employees.

To be clear, I'm just the messenger - a neutral one. I'm not strongly espousing one view over another. As for the W+K project, they did sell it as a school or school like experience that gives you a real W+K project, instead of an internship where the interns pay. One guy who got into YC was part of it: https://www.theymadethat.com/people/j81421/rudy-adler

There's a rule of thumb that money should flow in the opposite direction of problems, and if it's not, then the process is deeply flawed and unsustainable.

Pay an employee to take care of the company's problems; get paid by customers to take care of their problems; but if they're not paying you, their problems aren't your problems.

My wife is studying nutrition. To become a registered dietitian and be able to work in many (if not most) US states, you have to do a months-long internship at a hospital or similar facility. __you__ pay for the privilege. And when you finish, dietitian salaries are __pitiful__ compared to less rigorous health professions which don't require a Bachelors degree.

Is she working, or learning?

For example, in most states mental health therapists are required to finish their course of study with a certain large number of hours working "under supervision". They pay for the supervision, but at the same time they are working, so they are paid by their patients. Paying for an education isn't a scam.

If registered dietitians have to pay for their "internship", where they actually do work for the facility but don't get paid for it, yes, I think that's a scam too. Just because it's institutionalized doesn't make it an ethical practice.

In UK, certain hospitals charge 500£ applications fees for Clinical Internships (these are taken on by Migrant Medicine Graduates) so they can get at least 3 month UK NHS experience, so they can get their foot on the ladder... They only shadow to be fair, don't do any work... But, some countries will charge 5 times for visa applications, before they actually grant you a visa... UK, Canada, etc... It's an old age practice... In the old times of the geisha's, parents would pay the brothel to take up the daughters... So why wonder?

She is studying right now. The internship is after she gets her degree.

Yes, that is also shitty and should not be allowed.