It depends what kind of students you want to get. A lot of start ups can make that same argument and pay for the top quality talent (with more than a few thousand dollars).
What I would look at is teaming up with universities and professors and see if you can get students to work in teams on a non-profit project for school credit (possibly as capstone projects?). It allows you to side-step the whole salary and competing with internships thing, and gives students a chance to get real world experience during the school year. Of course that creates the new problem of finding a progressive enough university to sponsor that kind of program, but it's an interesting avenue to explore.
What I would look at is teaming up with universities and professors and see if you can get students to work in teams on a non-profit project for school credit (possibly as capstone projects?). It allows you to side-step the whole salary and competing with internships thing, and gives students a chance to get real world experience during the school year. Of course that creates the new problem of finding a progressive enough university to sponsor that kind of program, but it's an interesting avenue to explore.