I think you got me wrong, sorry for not having myself made clearer. I worked through college as an IT consultant as well, however as you noted under supervision of a consulting company with seniors. Hiring a college student directly, without a company attached that can be made liable, is just a bad idea, both for the customer and the student. Just imagine the customer had sued parent. I wasn't talking about technical competence - it's all about liability as well as having proper processes for design, implementation, review, testing and rollout in place - a thing that can easily he seen even before signing a contract.