I remember being an intern, being reimbursed for travel and getting lunch paid for was standard. But in the tech world, that just doesn’t fly. So how much can tech interns actually make?

Two students, Jessica Shu and Dan Zhang, took it upon themselves to find out, creating a big data set of what they and other students have been offered. Glassdoor also reported on the highest paying companies for interns at the start of last year, but Shu & Zhang’s figures are more recent.

So what’s the result? The median household income in the US is around $53,891, but interning at a hot tech company in in Silicon Valley for six months earns you near enough that figure, and you’ll probably get a housing stipend too. The housing allowance varies from a few hundred a month into the thousands of dollars. That’s a bit better than a train ticket and some sandwiches.

12-02-15-tech-intern-wages