Most college students find themselves short on money due to many academic and living expenses. But not to worry, you have a lot of easy ways to make money online as a college student.
Being a college student is stressful and expensive at the same time. You have to pay for your tuition, books, dorms and living expenses while studying and attending classes the whole day. Taking a job somewhere might put extra physical pressure on a college student and make their grades suffer.
Fortunately, there are plenty of work opportunities online if you know how and where to look for it.
Here, we will guide you through all the possible ways you can make money online with a flexible schedule and from your home or dorm easily.
How to Easy Ways to Make Money Online as a College Student
Needless to say, there are countless opportunities for a college student out there.
But some of them are the most demanding and we will take a look at those first.
Freelance Writing
If you have a talent for creating new content, a good command over the selected language and writing new stuff, then freelance writing can be the perfect and easiest way for you to make some extra money.
Freelance writing does not need any specific credentials or experience as long as you are good at writing.
You can start by signing up in websites like Fiverr and UpWork. These sites require you to set up a good profile and build up your scores by writing for clients assigned to you there.
Slowly, after building up a portfolio, you can find more jobs at Freelance Writing Jobs and Problogger too.
Freelance writing is a very easy way to earn money online as a college student.
Proofreading
Proofreading is a fairly easy job for college students. Nowadays, many professional content writers seek proofreaders to go through their work and correct the mistakes.
If you can easily spot grammar mistakes and spelling errors, then proofreading will be an easy task for you.
As it is the final stage before publishing a work, it is very crucial not to make mistakes here.
You can begin proofreading job by setting up a profile online first in platforms like Fiverr and start earning money.
You can also get a 7-day free course on proofreading on Proofread Anywhere.
Personal Blogging
Personal blogging is a great way to incorporate your writing skills and your problem-solving skills.
A blog is a website where you can write about your different views and experiences to your viewers and help them out by posting helpful blogs about any niches.
You can make your blog about a specific topic you like writing about and know a lot about.
It takes a considerable amount of time before you can start earning a good sum of money through blogging.
However, once you get a large amount of following, you can even earn up to 15,000$ in this way.
You will need to use advertisements, affiliate marketing to make money through your blog.
Web Developing
No matter what your major in college is, you can always take up web development as a side gig to make some extra money.
If you are interested in coding and creating websites then you should give this a try.
Web developers are high on demand now in everywhere and building up your skill in this will only be beneficial for you in the long run.
You can start looking for projects in sites like, PeoplePerHour, Freelancer, UpWork and Fiverr.
If you are new to the world of web developing, firstly you have to learn coding languages and WordPress.
To get skilled in Web developing, you can take a really helpful course “The Complete Web Developer Course on Udemy and start by doing small projects to develop your skills.
Graphic Designing
If you have an artistic mind and a passion for drawing, then graphic designing can be an extremely valuable way for you to earn money.
Lots of business owners require and search for skilled graphic designers to create eye catching artworks and brand logos to increase public attraction to them.
Keep an eye online to notice if any business pages need branding, logo designs or promoting advertisement designs to get started.
You can learn the basics of graphic design on “Graphic Design Basic Course” on Skillshare.
You can attend design competitions in 99Designs where they will pay you if you win.
Social Media Managing
Social media has become a crucial part of any business promotion currently.
Therefore, many business pages are looking for moderators to create engaging branding content and connect and attract customers on the social media.
This job pays a reasonable amount for a college student. If you are interested to be a social media moderator, then contact various business pages with your cv and let them know your experience in managing social sites successfully.
Becoming a Virtual Assistant
Another great way to earn money online as a college student is becoming a virtual assistant.
The work of a virtual assistant can range between a wide variety of jobs. It can be data entry, customer service, reading and replying to emails, social media marketing and many more.
Now business owners hire virtual assistants to do these jobs for them instead of doing these in house.
It saves them time and costs a lot. In the business world, outsourcing has become extremely demanding.
As a result, the need for virtual assistants has also risen up a great deal.
To work as a virtual assistant, you must first figure out which kind of services you want to offer and are good at.
Then you can setup a profile on Virtual Assistant Network and Zirtual to officially start earning.
You can earn several hundreds of dollars by working as a virtual assistant.
Reviewing Products
If you already have a good social media presence and a somewhat large following, you can take up reviewing products from different companies and pages. You can earn by reviewing websites and apps too.
Some food places, makeup brands, app developers pay a good sum of money for posting reviews of their products online if you are a popular face.
You can check out reviewing websites on UserTesting where each review gets you 10$. Moreover, it doesn’t even take much time to complete one review.
Becoming a YouTube Blogger
If you like creating original contents and have ideas to make creative and engaging videos, you can give making YouTube videos a shot.
You can choose a specific type of contents to create or you can mix and match while making the videos.
YouTube gets you money for the amount of people that watch your videos and the advertisements on your videos.
YouTube bloggers get 7.60$ per 1000 views on a video.
Doing Transcription Work
There is a high demand for people willing to transform audio into texts. If you have a good grasp over the language and can type quickly, you can easily take up a transcription job.
Many podcasters need someone to type their audios into a text form to post online.
They would hand over the work to online transcription aspirants with good synchronized command over both listening and typing at the same time.
Starting Your Own Website
Starting your own website is actually a passive but stable way to make money online.
There are lots of ways in which you could monetize your website once it gains enough attention.
You can use Bluehost to setup your own website in less than 20 minutes. You have to promote your website in any social medias first to gain first visitors.
The more visitors your website gets eventually, the more you earn.
Doing Search Engine Optimization
If you are an analytical person and have a good knowledge over SEO (Search Engine Optimization), then this will be a good opportunity for you.
Being a skillful SEO specialist needs you to optimize contents for a website to increase visitors in that website and come up higher in the search results.
But this job requires critical and technical thinking and programming skills.
If you manage to learn the work, you can even earn up to 75$ an hour which is incredible for a college student.
Becoming an Online Tutor
There are too many students out there who needs academical help in some way.
As a result, there is always countless tuition offers going around. If you are good at particular subjects, you can easily teach students in a lower grade than you.
It is very easy to find a tuition with a decent amount of money.
Currently, there are many online educational platforms where you can join as an online tutor.
These organizations pay an extremely hefty amount to the tutors involved. All you have to do is ensure your educational qualifications and the ability to teach others effectively.
Another site called Wyzant hires tutor who can set up their own rates for the job as well.
Creating an Online Course
Online courses about different kinds of skills are highly sought after and they help out fellow job seekers like you in the future too.
If you can instruct well, then you can start creating an online course over the topic you want. It could be educational as well as business related or skill development course.
Udemy is the best site for online courses. You can create any online course here and get paid forever as long as new students keep enrolling in the course.
Becoming a Data Entry Specialist
Data entry is another quite common task in the field of freelancing. Data entry specialists are always on demand now.
As long as you are skilled at handling spreadsheets such as, Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, you are fit for this job.
Joining “Get Paid to” sites
These kinds of sites pay you completing random tasks or activities. Swagbucks, Toluna, Inboxpounds are some of the reliable GPT sites.
They will give you either cash or voucher in exchange of an activity. You can answer and fill out a number of surveys on these sites every day. The compensation ranges from a few cents to 5$.
Taking Up Filmography
There is a huge demand for creative video editors and animators. The video content could be a trailer, a product and logo animation or an advertisement to increase the brand value.
So being skilled in video editing will get you some good projects online.
Finding gigs on Fiverr and UpWork
For anyone trying their luck in the field of freelancing, these two sites are like their holy grail.
Focusing on building up your profile in these sites and enriching them further will get you incredible job opportunities with excellent compensations.
Graphics and design, programming, digital marketing, creating music, video editing, writing- there are countless niches for you to work on.
You will have to list your area of expertise in your profile and get good ratings on your works so that the clients will choose you to complete their tasks.
Regardless of the work type, signing up in Fiverr or UpWork is a must for any college student looking for a way to earn money online.
Additionally, you can earn money in college by-
- Being a search engine evaluator
- Becoming a resume writer
- Helping out students with their college essays
- Affiliate marketing
- Streaming Video Games on Twitch
- Buying and selling domain names
- Being a Market Researcher
- Creating music
- Doing voice-overs
- Selling handmade crafts
- Translating work
Final Words
These are some of the easy ways to make money online as a college student.
Of course, there are countless other opportunities out there to earn money online as well.
These jobs don’t require all of your time from your already busy college schedule.
The best part is that you have the flexibility of doing the work from anywhere and anytime according to your convenience.
So, start researching about any of the options mentioned in this article that peak your interests and talents and get to earning money as soon as possible.
