The trouble with awesome summer internships--assistant editorial assistant at Rolling Stone or Spin, apprentice writer for NPR, savvy tour guide at the Met or the Art Institute of Chicago--is that many of them pay exactly nada. This means that the best internships--and thus, the really cool jobs--end up going to people who can afford to sail through months without an income. This, of course, translates into those students or recent grads who are supported financially by their parents. If you have a healthy trust fund from which to draw, you're good to go for any internship. But the truth is that most people don't have trust funds--and especially if you're a recent graduate, you're on your own. This leaves ordinary mortals in a bit of a fix. So what are you to do?

Get the Facts (and the Funding) First
The good news is that the internship dilemma isn't at all hopeless and where there's a will, there are actually a few different ways around this obstacle. Samer Hamadeh, coauthor with Mark Oldham of The Internship Bible, says that the assumption that internships will be unpaid is primarily a false one--with some exceptions. "Whether or not your internship will be paid or unpaid will depend upon which field you're targeting," Hamadeh says. "Many major Fortune 500 companies offer generous, paid internships and sometimes also offer cars, air travel, and dorm accommodations as well. Companies like Ford, Boeing, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, and other corporate giants do in fact have plum paid internships."

Many corporations will have diversity programs distinct from other programs for students who need financial assistance, which is one alternative route to a paid internship worth exploring. And diversity may simply mean female rather than male or someone from a particular region of the country. Look into what your school means by "diversity" and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Another possible funding route is to garnering a grant from school and/or a nonprofit group. The Foundation Center in New York City is a useful place for researching grants and nonprofit funding (www.foundationcenter.org). Also, an exhaustive online search could net some unimagined funding sources.

According to Hamadeh, the unfairness factor really kicks in when students are trying to land coveted internships in Hollywood or on Capitol Hill. These are two realms in which the financially independent clearly have an advantage, since very few paid internships are available in these fields. Movies, television, and politics are such popular career routes that finding interns willing to work for nothing is easy, and the competition is stiff. Even so, there are options. For those interested in Hollywood internships, the Academy of TV Arts & Sciences--the producers of the Emmy Awards--offer a ten-week program stipend, and on Capitol Hill, the WISE program for engineers and science-oriented interns offers financial assistance.

Leveling the Field by Working Your Tail Off
Landing the right internship can be a golden, career-bolstering opportunity, and so attempting to level the internship playing field is a legitimate and even noble pursuit. As exhausting as it may sound, consider moonlighting as another option, especially when numerous "night" jobs are only for a few nights per week or on weekends. Part-time jobs such as waiting tables, bartending, working for catering firms, moving furniture, painting houses, and driving a cab can pay $150 to $300 per shift; if you work two or three nights a week and share an apartment with a couple of other interns or friends, you should be able to pay your rent, eat, and have some spending money left over for the double espressos you'll be slamming to stay awake. Remembering that the crush you experience by moonlighting during your internship months will pay off handsomely later on should fuel your drive. And who knows? Your night or weekend gig could turn out to be more fun than you can imagine. If you wait tables or bartend in a good restaurant, you'll have the added benefit of delicious staff meals to boot.

Build-Your-Own Internships
Another route to consider is to create your own internship through family friends, relatives, or friends of relatives. If you have a contact in a business that doesn't use interns, consider offering to be a part-time intern or helper in order to learn the ropes, and then work at a paying job part-time for a cash infusion. Another option is to take a good internship position close to your parents' home, where--if you ask nicely and squelch your ego--you can reside for free and get home-cooked meals and retro packed lunches.

Hamadeh's advice is to do the digging necessary to get what you want if you can't take a nonpaying internship. "I'm a big believer in pulling yourself up by your bootstraps," he says. "If you're resourceful, creative, and determined enough, you can manage to score and keep a great nonpaying internship that will change your life forever."