31 Best Ways To Make Money As A College Student

 

Do you know, how to make money while studying in college? Well, there are a lot of ways for college students to make money online. Today, I am sharing the 31 best ways to make money as a college student.

Studying in college is not at all cheap. That’s why students are looking for ideas to make some money either to reduce the overall cost of studies or to get some extra money for having more fun.

You can easily make money as a college student without compromising with your studies, doing some extra work. The Internet provides you tons of opportunities to make money online from home. However, I will share with you both online and offline ways of making money as a college student.

If you’re someone who really wants to make legit money in your spare time while studying in college. This post is for you.

How to make money as a college student

1. Freelance Writing

Freelance writing is one of the easiest ways to start making money. If you’re good at writing, you can easily make money by writing content for blogs, businesses and many others. In college, we are always writing a lot of stuff in our classes but we don’t realize that we can make money with this skill.

There are plenty of opportunities out there for freelance writers. People are looking for online content writers who can either write fresh content on a topic or edit the content they already have.

You can charge based on the number of words or on an hourly basis or fixed amount for a full project. There are many online platforms like Upwork where you can apply for freelance jobs.

2. Become A Proofreader

Another popular way to make money as a college student is proofreading. If you’re good at finding errors in grammar, spelling, and formatting, proofreading is a great job for you.

Proofreaders are high in demand nowadays. Many authors, blogs and other content writing websites are looking for proofreaders. You can get paid for proofreading even for your college student’s project, thesis and research paper.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a proofreader gets an hourly wage of $20.17 and a mean annual wage of $41,950.

You can use free digital writing tools like Grammarly for mistake-free writing and better proofreading.

3. Become A Virtual Assistant

Another way to earn money while studying in college is becoming a virtual assistant. Busy professionals and businesses with a lot of money but no time always outsource virtual assistant (VA) for assistant type work.

The job profile of a VA consists of responding to emails, scheduling appointments, organizing, maintaining calendars and other administrative tasks. If you find this type of work interesting, consider becoming a virtual assistant and start making money online.

4. Create Gigs On Fiverr

Fiverr is a very popular freelance website where you can make anywhere between $5 to $10,000 by selling your Gigs. Selling gigs on Fiverr is one of the easiest ways to make money for college students.

You can join Fiverr for free and start making money as a freelancer from your home or college.

On the Fiverr marketplace, you can sell your skills in the field of graphics & design, digital marketing, video & animation, programming & tech and many more. Upselling is the best practice to increase the profit on Fiverr.

Also Read: How to make money on Fiverr?

5. Start A Blog

Starting a blog in your college days can be your best decision. You can start a blog on any topic you’re an expert or passionate about. However, blogging will not make you rich overnight but you can expect to make millions in the next 3 to 5 years.

The great thing about blogging is that you can do it anything (day or night) and from anywhere. Another great thing about blogging is that once you have created content and published it on your blog, it can make you money even after 2-3 years.

The money-making potential in blogging is such that more and more people are pursuing it as their full-time career. WordPress is the best platform to start your blog. Get a domain and hosting from Bluehost (one-click WordPress installation) which is WordPress.org recommended and start making money online.

6. Create An App

Creating an app for iPhone or Android can also be a great source of income for those studying in college. People love to use apps and they usually have 15 to 20 apps on their mobile phone.

If you have some programming skills, create an app and sell it on the app store. You can make any type of app, it could be a gaming app or any other regular app. Try to understand the demand in the market and develop an app to meet that demand.

7. Create An Online Course

Online courses are high in demand and provide huge opportunities to make money online. Till now we were talking about selling your skills by creating gigs. But now, you can make even more money by teaching that skill to many people.

In order to teach your skill, you need to create an online course and sell it. The best place to sell your online course is Skillshare. The great thing about Skillshare is that you don’t need to find students for your course. You provide the course, they provide the students.

If you don’t have any skills, the best way is to learn from Skillshare and then create a course on the same with some value addition.

8. Work On A College Project

Another way to make money in college while studying is to get into a college project as a research assistant. Depending upon the department and the professor you are working for, you have to perform different duties.

Your duties might be to perform experiments, collecting samples & data, cleaning equipment and anything else as required for the project. I know many people who are earning $300 to $400 every month by working as a research assistant.

These job positions are generally advertised by the college but you can directly contact the professor and let them know that you’re interested in becoming a research assistant.

9. Gardening And Landscaping

Another way to make money as a college student is by providing gardening and landscaping services. Approach your neighbors, hotels & marriage houses in your locality and make a deal with them.

You can provide them hourly, daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly or on project basis services. There is a great demand for gardening and landscaping, especially in hotels and marriage houses. You can easily make around $500 every month depending upon the services you’re providing and that too without investing a lot of time and money.

10. Do Voice-Over Work

Do you think, you have a great voice? If yes, here is another opportunity for you to make money online. People are always looking for voice-over artists on sites like Fiverr. This is one of the most popular freelance jobs on Fiverr.

There is a huge demand for voice-over artists due to the rise in video content and podcasting. Many people are making lots of money by doing voice-over acting from home. You do not need to actually visit a studio to record your voice. If you have a good quality microphone setup at home, you can start making money selling the voice over gigs.

11. Complete Online Surveys

Online surveys are one of the easiest ways to make money from home. As a college student, you can easily make $100 to $150 every month along with your other side hustles.

You can find the best paid survey sites to make money online and join a few of them.

Some of the most popular online surveys to make money fast are Swagbucks, ySense, Toluna, YouGov and Neobux.

12. Write eBooks

Writing and selling eBooks is another way for college students to make money online. If you have good knowledge about something, you can share it with many others writing and selling eBooks. eBooks are becoming very popular nowadays as people are preferring reading online.

You can write anything like how-to manuals, tutorials, food recipes and many more. One of the best places to sell your eBooks is Amazon. You can self publish the eBooks for free with Kindle direct publishing and start selling.

13. Become A User Tester

Everyday a lot of websites and apps are developed by companies. What if they are not user-friendly and create a problem every time a person uses them. Of course, this will negatively affect the business of the companies. That’s why user testing is very important.

Companies and businesses pay you to test the user-friendliness and functionality of their website and apps. All you have to do is to visit the websites or apps, use it and provide the feedback.

There are popular sites like Usertesting.com where you can register yourself to get the work when available as finding it here and there could be a time-consuming task. You get paid flat $10 for each qualified test.

14. Become A Tutor

If you have expertise in any academic subject, becoming a tutor can be a lucrative side hustle for you. As a tutor, you can get paid for using your subject knowledge to help others. You can either be face to face tutor or an online tutor.

For becoming a face to face tutor, you need to find the high school students in your locality and ask their parents if they need a private tutor for their children or not. If you have a good academic record, chances are that they will hire you and pay you a good amount. You can also provide your tutoring services to college students.

However, if you want to sell your services online, Tutor.com is the best place to start.

15. Sell Your Computer Skills

Have good computer skills?

You can get paid to teach these skills to people around you. There are a lot of people, especially people from the older generation, who are not very familiar with computers but want to learn. You can help these people learning basic computer skills like how to use a computer or how to install the software.

16. Do Freelance Data Entry

Another popular way to make money online from home is by doing data entry jobs. For getting a data entry job, you need to have some basic computer and typing skills.

There are many sites that provide this type of job but all of them are not legit. So beware of scams and get the job only from legitimate sites.

I highly recommend popular and trusted sites like Fiverr and Clickworker to get data entry jobs. These sites will provide you enough opportunities to make money online while studying in college.

17. Pet Sitting

Love animals? What about hanging out with dogs? If you do, pet sitting is a great option for you to earn some extra money.

When people are not at home or they are out for work, they need someone to take care of their pets. They are ready to pay you a good amount of money for this. Rover is one place that connects you with all those people in your neighborhood who need a pet sitter or a dog walker.

18. Baby Sitting

If you love spending time with kids then babysitting might be a good way for you to earn extra cash. Babysitting is one the easiest and most rewarding side hustle to make money with. You can easily make $10 to $15 an hour.

You can easily find the work in your neighborhood. If you don’t want to go door to door asking for a babysitter job, you can register yourself on sites like Care.com. So if you really like being with kids, consider babysitting as an option to make money while studying in college.

19. Apply For Scholarships

Earning a scholarship is a great way to earn money as a student. Every college or university has a scholarship program. Get the information about all scholarship programs either from your seniors, professors or college/university website and apply for them.

College scholarship can pay you around $500 to $1500 every year. This can greatly help you in completing your education or paying off your education debt. Most of the students never apply for the scholarship program because either they don’t know about it or they think that they will not win. Don’t be one among them and apply for scholarships.

20. Become A Gym Trainer

Becoming a gym trainer can be a good way to make money in college. Colleges generally have a gym for the students which you can use either for free or at someplace with a monthly subscription. But what they don’t have is a personal trainer.

People want to be fit and healthy but they don’t do anything for this due to lack of proper guidance and motivation. If you are in good shape and love to be in the gym, you can make easy money helping others to be fit and healthy becoming a personal trainer.

21. Web Developer

Building websites in college can pay you handsomely if you have some coding skills. You can make money by developing websites for local businesses, hotels, clinics and many more so that they can take their business online.

You can easily make $15 to $20 as a freelance web developer. This side hustle has so much potential that you can continue it to make a full-time business in the future. Skillshare has many courses for self-taught tech-savvy students where you can learn all the skills for developing a website.

22. Become A Graphic Designer

Graphic design is a very popular profession and has great potential in it. This is because graphics are very important for the success of many businesses and websites. However, graphic design is not only about making websites logos. You can earn by designing t-shirts, business cards, eBooks and product packaging.

If you have the skill of graphic design, you can easily get $5 – $10 for designing a graphic. 99Designs is one of the best places to start with as a graphic designer.

23. Start A YouTube Channel

YouTube is one of the most popular ways to make money online, part-time or full time. This is a platform where one viral video can make you both rich and popular. You can make money on YouTube by using Goggle AdSense, affiliate marketing and sponsorship and many more.

Depending upon the video content you’re providing, you can easily get paid $7 to $8 for 1000 views. Try to produce great quality content on a regular basis so that your audience will remain engaged and your channel will get more views.

There are many people who are working full time on YouTube and making hundreds or thousands of dollars every month.

24. Become Amazon Seller

Amazon is a great platform to make money online. As a college student, you can start an Amazon FBA business with very little investment. Amazon has a huge customer base, which provides the opportunity for you to earn more.

If you have your own product to sell, you can make more profit by reducing the cost of purchasing products.

25. Sell T-Shirts

Selling t-shirts online is a very popular and profitable business. With Shopify, you can start your online t-shirt selling business within minutes. Merch by Amazon is another very popular platform to start making money selling t-shirts.

There are people who are making thousands of dollars by selling t-shirts as their side hustle.

26. Sell Video Game Accounts

Most of the kids nowadays are video game addicts, I must say. But when they join college, they have very little time for playing their favorite games.

If you were a video game addict in your school days, selling your video game accounts on sites like eBay can help you make extra money online in college.

27. Sell Photos

College students get opportunities to visit many places and they usually capture the photos to make memories. If you think you have good photography skills and your photos are of great quality, you can sell them on various stock photography websites.

Some of the very popular stock photography websites are Flickr, Shutterstock, Alamy, and iStock. There is an app called Foap where you can make money selling your photos to well-known brands around the world.

28. Sell Your Notes

I still remember those days in college when we used to take notes from our topper just before exams. Selling your class notes can be one of the first things to make money in college while studying.

If you’re good at making class notes, you can sell them to your fellow students or to the junior students and make some extra cash.

29. Social Media Manager

Students nowadays are very active on social media platforms. If you’re popular on social media and have a great following, you can make money easily becoming a social media manager.

Use your social media knowledge and experience to promote local businesses and companies. You can get paid to handle their social media accounts and creating content for them that people will engage with.

30. Earn Cashback Using Apps

There are many apps that can earn you cash back on your everyday purchases. Some of the very popular cashback apps are Ibotta, Ebates, Shopkick, and Receipt Hog.

Ibotta gives you cashback for simply checking the app before shopping and making any purchases.

Along with using these cashback earning apps, you can also download and use some of the best money making apps for college students to make money online.

31. Invest Money

Warren Buffett, the most successful investor in the world, made his first investment when he was 11 years old. Do you know what he thinks about starting his investment? He thinks that he was very late in making his first investment.

So, don’t give excuses like I don’t have money to invest or it’s too early.

“Its never too early to start investing”.

You can start investing as a college student with a small amount of money. The good thing about starting early is that you learn a lot in the process and risk only a small amount.

The intelligent investor is one of the most recommended books to learn investing and make fortune as an investor.

Conclusion

Nothing can stop you from making money as a college student, except your own excuses. The possibilities for making money online while studying in college are numerous.

With one or some of these 31 best ways to make money as a college student, you can start your side hustle to earn money while studying.

If you find your passion for any of these legitimate money-making ideas, you can turn it into your full-time career.

I hope you have found at least one idea from the above list that you can use to start making money.

So, what are you waiting for?

Get yourself in this money-making game and start earning.

Please write in comments, which idea you liked the most and if you tried one?

Thanks for reading.