My department has the undergraduates and the graduate students do a practicum. The department tries to get a corporate "sponsor," who pays the department to solve a problem, like an Operations Research problem. If the department doesn't find a sponsor, they usually do a math competition or work some other problems.
We, the students, have to pay about $1,200 in tuition to take this course and do the work for the company.
I don't like the idea of paying my school to do work for a company that the company also pays the school for.
I'd be fine with this if I didn't have to pay tuition or if the class was an elective.