I've graduated - somehow!
My placement was at the city hospital - in the finance dept (my degree was business studies). Since then my current place of work has taken on two placement students, so I've seen how it works today - it hasn;t changed much.

Basically you go to an open day, then apply, then go to a flash interview where you're told all about how wonderful the company is and how loads of placement students at the company get 'guaranteed' jobs after graduation.

Face it - you're cheap labour. I know 17 year old office temps doing filing that get paid more than placement students. If you get a job with them after Uni - great, you'll make a lot more than that temp.
More often than not - you're taken on out of a need to keep good PR with universities so that they can cherry-pick all the grads with Firsts, and also because you're cheaper than real employees.

I won;t deny I enjoyed my placement, and I did learn more there than in all the other 3 years of my degree.

I'm simply warning students who are yet to do a placement that it's not all it's cracked up to be - and you'll still have to manage your finances very well not to end up even deeper in debt than you already will be.