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Finance Internships for High School Students: The Real List
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Finance Internships for High School Students: The Real List
Tyler Brooks · Jul 12, 2026
12 min read
Banking, trading, and accounting firms do hire high schoolers. Not many, not easily, but the real paid programs exist. The lists online make it look easier than it is by counting $10,000 summer courses and college-only programs like Girls Who Invest alongside the actual paid work.
This list only covers finance-specific programs that hire high school students. For the broader business internship landscape (BoA Student Leaders, NYC Ladders, Microsoft Discovery), our business internships guide covers those in depth, including the four-test filter for real internships versus fake ones.
One note on timing. Application season is on right now. Goldman Sachs Possibilities opens February 1. Goldman Virtual Insight opens March 16. KPMG Empower deadlines land in February.
JPMorgan Smart Start decisions roll through spring. Every program below has a hard deadline in the next 10 weeks. Do not wait.
Paid Finance Programs That Hire High School Students
Five programs in the US pay high school students real money for real finance work. Five. Everyone else is running a summer course, an exposure program, or a college-only pipeline.
| Program | Pay | Length | Who qualifies | Deadline | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KPMG Empower High School Experience | $22-25/hr | 3 weeks | Juniors/seniors, targeted diversity pipeline | February | Multiple US cities |
| Federal Reserve Bank of Boston TIP | Paid hourly | Summer | Income-eligible Boston Public Schools sophomores | Spring | Boston only |
| JPMorgan Thomas G. Labrecque Smart Start | Paid (4-year pipeline) | Part-time + summers through college | Graduating seniors, NY metro bias | Rolling senior year | NY metro + target colleges |
| Chicago Summer Business Institute | Paid hourly | 6 weeks | Chicago juniors/seniors | Early March | Chicagoland only |
| NYC Ladders for Leaders (finance placements) | $16.50/hr min | Summer + 30h training | Ages 16-24, NYC, prior work history | January 16 | NYC only |
Notice only KPMG operates in multiple cities. Every other paid HS finance program is regional. Geography gates this list harder than credentials do.
KPMG Empower High School Experience
This is the find most high school finance lists miss. KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms, runs a paid three-week program for high school juniors and seniors at $22 to $25 an hour.
That beats Kaiser Permanente's KP Launch rate per hour, and it exposes you to real Big Four audit, tax, and advisory work.
Empower places students across KPMG offices in multiple US cities. The programs run in July, typically for three weeks, and pay high school students about the same hourly rate KPMG pays its first-year college interns.
Eligibility: high school juniors and seniors, US citizens or work-authorized, typically students from underrepresented backgrounds in accounting and finance. KPMG uses Empower as a pipeline into its Master's in Accounting recruiting two years later.
Deadline: applications typically open late fall and close February. Announcements go out early spring for summer placement.
Honest take: if you are serious about accounting, tax, or corporate finance (not Wall Street trading), Empower is the best-kept secret on this list. $22 to $25 an hour for three weeks of real Big Four work beats three weeks of Wharton Finance coursework for resume value. And you get paid instead of paying.
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Federal Reserve Bank of Boston TIP
The Boston Fed runs the Today's Interns, Tomorrow's Professionals program for Boston Public Schools sophomores who have completed sophomore year.
Paid work inside a central bank. Real finance and economics exposure. The partnership runs with the Boston Private Industry Council (PIC), which manages intake.
Eligibility: Boston Public Schools students who have completed sophomore year, income-eligible (the program targets underrepresented students in finance), and available for the full summer placement.
Deadline: spring. PIC typically posts applications in March or April. Check the Boston Fed TIP page and the Boston Private Industry Council site for the current year's window.
Honest take: tiny cohort, narrow gate. If you qualify (Boston Public Schools, income-eligible), apply. The Federal Reserve on your resume as a high schooler is distinctive enough to mention 15 years later.
Other Federal Reserve locations (NY, SF, Chicago, Dallas) do not currently run comparable high school programs. NY Fed's junior summer analyst program is for college students only.
JPMorgan Thomas G. Labrecque Smart Start Program
This one is unique on the list. Smart Start is not a single summer internship. It is a four-year pipeline.
Graduating high school seniors who get accepted commit to part-time work at JPMorgan during college plus full-time summer internships each year until graduation. The firm covers training, mentorship, and a real career path into JPMorgan's analyst programs.
Eligibility: graduating high school seniors heading to college in fall, typically NY metro area, often targeted at students from historically underrepresented backgrounds in financial services. Strong academic profile required.
Deadline: rolling through senior year. JPMorgan recruits through high school college counselors and community partners. Acceptance decisions go out in late spring.
Honest take: if Wall Street is the goal, this is the single most valuable program a high school senior can land. You skip the usual scramble of applying to internships during college.
By senior year of college, you have three summers at JPMorgan and a strong path to a full-time job offer there. No other HS program matches this pipeline.
The catch: extremely limited slots, NY metro bias, and it usually requires being at a college JPMorgan recruits from heavily, which is its own filter.
Chicago Summer Business Institute (Finance Track)
CSBI's placement model is finance-focused. Since 1991 the program has placed Chicago-area high school juniors and seniors into six-week paid internships at banks, asset managers, and financial services firms across Chicagoland.
Northern Trust, Mesirow Financial, BMO Harris, and similar firms rotate as host partners each cohort.
For Chicago finance-bound students, CSBI is more targeted than BoA Student Leaders, which places at community nonprofits instead. At CSBI you rotate through real financial services work: account services, junior analyst support, client reporting.
Deadline: applications typically open January or February and close early March. If you are reading this in January, the window is open or opening this month. Full CSBI application process details are in our business internships guide.
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NYC Ladders for Leaders (Finance Placements)
Ladders for Leaders is the highest-volume paid internship program for NYC high schoolers, and roughly 20 percent of the 1,000+ annual placements go to finance and banking firms.
JPMorgan Chase, American Express, Deutsche Bank, and major NYC banks each take a cohort of Ladders students every summer. If you want Wall Street exposure at 16 or 17, this is the most accessible path.
Placement type depends on your application essay and interview. Indicating a finance interest on your application and discussing it during pre-employment training increases the odds of a finance placement.
Deadline: January 16 for the current cycle. If you missed it, the next window opens late November. Full Ladders eligibility and application details in our business internships guide above.
Wall Street Early Insight Programs (Real, Free, Accessible)
These are not internships. They do not pay. They are exposure programs designed to seed the undergrad recruiting pipeline. But they are real, free, and they put a Wall Street name on your resume, which opens doors when undergrad recruiting starts your sophomore year of college.
Goldman Sachs High School Possibilities Program
Goldman Sachs selects a small group of exceptional HS juniors for a week-long immersion program. Workshops on investment banking, sales and trading, asset management. Translation: investment banking helps companies raise money, sales and trading is buying and selling stocks for clients, and asset management is investing other people's money. Networking with Goldman analysts and VPs. No pay. Real access.
Eligibility: rising HS seniors with strong academic profiles, typically from underrepresented backgrounds in finance.
Deadline: applications open February 1. Competitive selection through the Goldman Sachs Possibilities Series page.
Honest take: if you get in, you basically have a head start on Goldman's college internship recruiting two years later. That matters more than a paycheck. You do not get paid, but you get into the pipeline.
Goldman Sachs Virtual Insight Series
Broader access version. Virtual, self-paced content plus live sessions. Open to HS students who do not clear the Possibilities selection bar.
Deadline: applications open March 16.
Honest take: lower stakes, lower return. Free and resume-mentionable. Worth a weekend to sign up for if you are finance-curious.
JPMorgan Early Insights
Week-long exposure programs across JPMorgan's divisions: investment banking, asset management, risk management. Workshops plus networking plus mentorship. Some editions are HS-specific, others target college freshmen.
Check JPMorgan's student opportunities page for the current HS-specific sessions. Applications open throughout the year.
Morgan Stanley Programs
Morgan Stanley runs the High School Introduction to Entrepreneurship Program and the Women's Leadership Workshop.
Both are free, both short-format. Entrepreneurship and leadership angles, not pure finance, but useful for HS students balancing business
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