how to make money as a college student

17 Legit And Easy Ways For College Students To Make Money

Isn’t technology great? Being able to work remotely with an internet connection opens up so many great employment opportunities.

I love showcasing various work from home jobs and creative ways to make money, but this post is targeted to a specific group of people. Yes, it’s all about students! Hang on tight because you’re about to learn about the best online jobs for college students.

First things first, a bit of student loan debt education…..Did you know that there’s been a 157% cumulative growth in student loans over the last 11 years? This equates to a cringe worthy amount of money toping off at $1.5 trillion.

This is absolutely crazy! No wonder college students are hustling their way through college and always on the search for a part time job to make money.

1. CREATE AN ONLINE COURSE

Online courses are gaining more and more popularity and for good reason. People love learning at their own pace and from the comfort of their own homes.

If you are knowledgeable about a certain topic you can create online courses showing others how to do something you are passionate about. Creating an educational course is a great online part-time job for students.

Online courses are also a great way for college students to make a full time income during the summer months. Platforms like Teachable and Udemy have made it so easy for you to create courses and sell them for profit.

Crazy successful blogger Michelle Gardner of Making Sense of Cents is a six figure blogger, and a big chunk of that money comes from her signature online courses.

Michelle earns $100,000+ every month and a huge portion of that money comes from her Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course.

A couple of my favorite platforms that college students can make money from are:

2. BECOME ON ONLINE PROOFREADER

Are you one of those people who can spot grammatical or spelling errors from a mile away? If so it sounds like proofreading is something that can make you some good money. A freelance proofreader is someone who checks for spelling mistakes or grammatical errors in books, manuscripts or other written materials.

Considering most college students are routinely submitting reports and research papers it seems only right that being paid to proof others work is an easy way for you to make money.

There is one person who stands out to me as a highly successful proofreader, Caitlin Pyle. Because of Caitlin’s giant success ($50,000 + per year) while traveling and proofing on the side, she decided to teach others to do the same.

Caitlyn now educates people how to quickly become professional proofreaders and begin making money fast. Check out this FREE SEVEN day introduction from Caitlin’s signature course Proofread Anywhere.

If you’re a bit intrigued and would like to learn more check out her  FREE 76-minute workshop where she will give you tons of useful information about the skills needed to become a proofreader.

After you have finished Caitlin’s course you can start making money by setting up a freelance account on Fiverr.

Click here to get instant access to her FREE workshop!

3. BECOME A FREELANCE WRITER

Becoming a freelance writer kind of goes hand and hand with becoming a proofreader. This is a great opportunity for any college student looking to make money working online.  

Writers are in high demand and college students can work either part-time or one the weekend’s to make some good money.

A freelance writer is someone who works on a self-employed basis and produces whatever written text is needed by their clients. There are tons of opportunities whether you work for online media platforms, informational websites or writing blog posts and newsletters for various companies.

Working as a freelance writer is desired by many because it allows you to work from anywhere. You just have to have some of the basics like a computer, internet access, and a phone.

As a new writer, you can expect to earn $20 to $50 per article, the more experience you have, the more you will be able to earn. Well known writers with good experience charge as high as $100 per article. The national average for a freelance writer is $42,120.

If you want to find out more about becoming a paid freelance writer and all the steps you need to take to make money, I strongly suggest you read Gina’s tips.  Gina shares in-depth lessons and information in her 30-days or less to Freelance Writing Success.  

Freelance writing website TextBroker is a fantastic place to network and find job opportunities. As always Fiverr is another great option to find job opportunities

Click here to learn more about becoming a freelance writer and start taking advantage of one of the most lucrative ways to make money in college.

4. START A MONEY MAKING BLOG

learn how to make cash as a college student

Ok get this! Had I known in college what I know today I would have started a blog years ago. Creating a successful blog is something that takes a ton of work but its a fantastic way to share your knowledge while making good money!

A perfect example of a college student making money online from her blog is Alexis Gardner of Fitnancials.com. She is currently making $10,000 per month through various things like affiliate marketing.

Alexis’s ability to make such good money is all because of a fabulous lady by the name of  Michelle Gardner.  Michelle teaches affiliate marketing strategies through her signature course: Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.

The key to making money as a blogger is to write content that provides value to your readers. So if you’re knowledgeable about a certain topic and want to share that knowledge others, you should consider starting a blog. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to start a WordPress blog in 15 minutes or less.

Don’t worry if you’ve never created a website before just sign up for web hosting, install your blog on WordPress, and begin writing helpful content.

I know several people who started out making only a couple hundred dollars here and there but are now generating over $10,000 a month. My favorites are The Savvy Couple and The Dollar Sprout, check them out they have great blogs and incredible stories!

5. TRANSCRIPTIONIST

Becoming a transcriptionist is something that i enjoy talking about because of my experience in the medical field.

Over the years I’ve encountered several college students who work from home making money from transcribing medical documents. A transcriptionist is a person who listens to audio files like interviews, lectures, legal or medical files and types them into text format.

If you are a student who is a fast and accurate typist with basic computer skills this can be the perfect way to make money online.  

The average income is around $45,000 for general transcriptionists.  However, legal transcriptionist can earn around $60,000.

There are courses for both general transcription which you can access here and legal transcription which is great for law or medical students. As for legal transcription, Janet Shaughnessy has a legal transcription e-course that teaches you everything you need to know.

First things first, check out this FREE 7-Day mini course. It’s an in-depth look at what transcription is, what equipment you’ll need, and what it takes to be successful.

This course will transform you from novice into transcriptionist in no time. You’ll learn what it takes to become a transcriptionist and make money from home even as a college student.

Want to get started with general transcription? You can find part-time online transcription jobs for college students on Fiverr.

CLICK HERE TO GET INSTANT ACCESS TO JANET’S 7-DAY MINI-COURSE

6. SELL ON AMAZON FBA

If you are a college student who enjoys spending your weekends shopping and finding good deals you should definitely consider Amazon’s FBA program.

Amazon FBA’s make money by finding items at a discounted price and reselling  them on Amazon for a higher price.  The idea behind this is you are setting up your own online store where Amazon takes care of all of the shipping and customer service needs.

Jessica, of the Selling Family, is one of my favorite people when it comes to proving that you can make money and own a successful FBA business. She managed to make over $100,000 in her first year with her FBA business. Talk about impressive!

She has a FREE 3-part video series that shows you how to start and run a successful Amazon FBA business and how you can begin making money I highly suggest you start here by reading The Ultimate Beginners Guide To Getting Started On Amazon FBA.

And if you are ready to get started? Head on over to Jessica’s FREE 7-Day Email Course For Amazon FBA where you’ll learn everything there is to know about launching your FBA business the right way.

7. ONLINE TUTOR

Just because you are a student doesn’t mean you can’t teach others. As a college student you may be drained, short on time, and perhaps doing more “school work” is the last thing you want to do.

But by working as a tutor you can earn some extra cash and help students improve academically. Get this! You can essentially get paid to study if you have a higher understanding of a subject that others in your class are trying to learn.

As you can see this is a fantastic way for a college students to make extra cash from home or even their dorm room.

Not interested in tutoring other classmates? That’s ok because you can even teach English to younger kids.

The online space has even made it possible for you to teach English to kids. Online tutoring is easy and stress free and involves teaching through virtual environment platforms like Skype, Google Hangouts, or Facetime.

If you have a college degree I recommend signing up with VipKid. If not, you can sign up with Magic Ears. Magic Ears is a fantastic company that offers jobs to college students with no experience or college degree.

Some of our favorite companies for online tutoring are

how to make money as a college student

8. SEARCH ENGINE EVALUATOR

Curious what a search engine evaluator does and how you a can make money doing it?

 Basically, this is a person who evaluates search engine results to determine if they are relevant or not to the term typed in. As a search evaluator, it’s your job to make sure that the results people are getting are relevant to what they were searching for.

I think working as a search engine evaluator is the perfect online job for quick cash. And the best things is the schedule is flexible enough to work around college students busy schedules.

If you’re curious and want to learn more about how to become a search engine evaluator, I suggest you read this post from The Penny Hoarder about how to get paid $12/hour as a search engine evaluator .

9. FREELANCE FOR FIVERR

The best part of doing freelance work is that you can sign up for a variety of tasks and easily earn $100 a day as a college student.

It’s true! Check out Sean Carney a student from Ithaca College he’s proof that you really can make money as a student online.

Fiverr is an online marketplace for selling freelance services starting at $5. Freelance opportunities range broadly and can include data entry, programming, marketing, translation, resume help, logo design and much more.

As mentioned above projects start at $5 but they can increase quickly to to a whopping $1,000.

Many Fiverr sellers have turned their work into full-time gigs. College student with less time on their hands can easily choose to work part-time.

The great thing about Fiverr is the flexibility, you decide the delivery time of the product to the customer. Obviously this is what makes freelancing for Fiverr a great opportunity for college students who are short on time, you can check them out HERE.

10.MAKE MONEY FROM WEB DEVELOPMENT

You don’t have to be incredibly skilled to get started as a web developer. You can take this Complete Web Developer Course for only $12 where it will teach you everything you need to know to start booking clients.

Obviously, taking only one course won’t make you an immediate master in web development but it’ll get you started in the right direction while you build your confidence.

For new web developers, I recommend you start slowly by taking on simple jobs for clients and move up from there. Each time you take on a job you’ll learn something new. Start building powerful apps and cash-earning websites today.

11. FLIPPING FOR PROFIT

Flipping items for profit is a term that describes purchasing things at a lower price in one market and then selling them a higher price in another market.  Ebay is the perfect online selling platform to carry out this process.

Rob and Melissa from Fleamarket Flippers  are the brilliant people who turned me onto this. They made $42,000 flipping on the side when they first started out and then made $133,000 in 2016 working only 20 hours a week.

If you are interested in flipping, I highly recommend you read 5 Ways to Get FREE Items To Resell for Profit: this is a great book that will help you learn how to make money by flipping items.

They also have a great course at Flipper University that teaches beginners how to earn up to $2,500 per month in the first year of flipping items.

If you’re looking for other ways to make money from home, make money quickly, or how to make money from your hobbies check out these other posts:

12. GRAPHIC DESIGNER

You don’t have to have a college degree in graphic design to make money online as a designer.

If you are a student who is good at creating logos, banners, or brochures you can easily make money online

Small business and Companies like Fiverr are in need of creators who are able to create appealing graphics for just about everything- logos, business cards, social media pages.

Click here to join Fiverr and start earning money with your design skills!

If you don’t yet have the necessary skills but still want to try your hand at graphic design, sign up for the free Graphic Design Basics course on Skillshare. This class is a short overview of the fundamentals of visual design.

After you’ve got the basics down, consider a more detailed course like Graphic Design for Beginners Part 1. This course goes more in depth about how to apply the principles of design to real-world projects.

Once you’re ready to get started, reach out to small businesses in your area. Let them know what services you offer (business cards, branding, flyer design, etc.) and how you can help them increase brand awareness.

In addition to local businesses, many bloggers use freelance designers for Pinterest pin creation and other social media imagery. Email your favorites and see if they could use your new skills.

99designs and freelance sites like Upwork are also promising sources for freelance designers.

13. VIRTUAL ASSISTANT

Virtual assistants or VA’s for short are a hot commodity when it comes to helping businesses run more smoothly. College students can make money online by working part time or on a contract basis. A VA can earn great money working from home for a few hours a day.

Tasks may vary from client to client. But basically, entrepreneurs, bloggers, small and large businesses are always looking for the expertise of virtual assistants to help them keep their businesses growing.

Virtual assistants do a ton of things such as writing articles, creating images for websites, managing emails, …and yes, managing their social media pages.    

I wrote a detailed post about how to become Virtual Assistant and everything you need to know.

Did you read my article above? Did it answer all of your questions?

If you’re still overwhelmed take a look at 30 days or less to virtual assistant success training. It’s a detailed course that shows you how to set up and run your virtual assistant business successfully.

If you’re not sure what skills you’d like to add to your virtual assisting portfolio check out this amazing list. It’ll provide you with tons of ideas to get you started, I highly encourage you to grab it while it’s still free.

If you’re interested in a complete list of services that VA’s offer, check out this FREE resource: 150+ Services You Can Offer as a Virtual Assistant (And Get Paid For!)

If you are interested in learning more about how to become a virtual assistant I strongly advise you to click here to read Gina’s tips.

Gina created a successful VA business and within 6 months she was earning $4,000 on the side each month (while still working full time!). You can learn how to do the same in less than 30 days by clicking here!.

14. DATA ENTRY ONLINE JOBS

Data entry online jobs are perfect for college students looking to make a bit of money on the side. It’s a relatively easy way to make money and doesn’t require any specialized skills.

Data entry involves entering or updating data into the computer using Excel docs, Google documents or in preset programs online.

Here are some legitimate data entry online jobs to check out:

15. TEST WEBSITES ONLINE

Are you one of those students who is always surfing the web? If so, this is one of the easiest and quickest ways to make money online as as college student.

Website testing is an easy online job that you can do on a part-time basis or even nights and weekends.

Website creators want to know how the average person’s experience is while using their product. The main job of the tester is to provide quality feedback about their experience while navigating the site.  

After signing up with User Testing a person can begin making $10 for each website reviewed. You can expect each test to take approximately 20 minutes to finish.

As you can see, this can add up to some pretty decent money- $30 an hour to surf the web! Oh and No, you don’t have to be a super tech savvy person to sign up with User Testing.

16. GET PAID FROM ONLINE SURVEY

I have to be honest, if you are a college student who is in need of a lot of cash fast surveys aren’t your best option.

But in just a few minutes you can easily make money by sharing your opinion to help brands deliver better products and services.

Taking online surveys is a good option for college students to make some extra money in their spare time. As a survey taker, expect to earn $5 to $15 per survey on average, but the high paying surveys pay up to $100 per survey.

To get started as a survey taker, you’ll you want to sign up with several survey sites. The more surveys you take the more money you’ll make (Survey Junkie is a favorite).

I also recommend signing up for Swagbucks because of the many different ways to earn (watching videos, taking surveys, playing games, browsing the web, and more).

One of the higher paying survey companies is Vindale Research. The payout for Vindale Research is usually around $10-$15 per survey. However, sometimes you can get surveys that pay up to $50!

Signup with Vindale Research right here.

For more survey companies like Swagbucks, Vindale Research and Survey Junkie check out the best paid survey sites where readers go to learn about the surveys companies that pay the most.

Other best and highest paying survey companies to check are:

17. MAKE A BIT OF MONEY BY SIGNING UP FOR EBATES

If you shop online, do yourself a huge favor and make sure you are using Ebates. Ebates is a cash back app that not only helps you save money but it pays you too.

You easily make money by recommending it others, Ebates will pay you a $5 commission for every new person that joins. $5 doesn’t seem like a ton but heck it will pay for your latte!

Start earning money from home by referring your friends and family to Ebates using link.

If you’re looking for one last way to save and make money I highly recommend you check out Honey. With Honey you’ll no longer need to search for coupon codes and sales again!

Click on the Honey button during checkout and Honey will automatically apply coupon codes to your shopping cart. It’s a great way to save money and find deals without doing any work. It’s FREE, and you can check it out here.

CONCLUSIONS FOR HOW COLLEGE STUDENTS CAN MAKE SOME CASH

I know trying to make money as a college student can be difficult. You are busy, short on time, and strapped for cash. It’s because of these exact reasons I created this post.

I’ve been there it’s absolutely no fun to feel strapped for cash while trying to make ends meet. Do yourself a favor and find something off the list above to help you make money on the side.

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