How can college students make money from home?
Life as a college student is hard. Having to balance classes, homework, and exams. There isn't much free time available for you, but you have to use most of what you got. Making money online is your best bet. You can work on your own time and don't have to be stuck with a manager on your head or doing any physical labor. With just an internet connection you'll be able to connect to another business.
You can start your own business, have an online part-time job, or work with clients online. These are the 3 main ways of generating money online. You can set up everything in terms of your own schedule. Choose when or when not to work. These upcoming online jobs for college students can be started by anyone. I've provided a lengthy list of 31 ways to make money online from home, dorm room, or anywhere!
1) Start a blog
The simplest and easiest way to earn money online is through blogs. Identify what you want to write about, it's always best to be niched so you have your own customer base. With time and effort, your blogs can even become 7 figures-rich businesses.
What you'll need to start a blog:
Website
Domain
That's all you need to start your blog website, then of course you will need to write blogs to create content for your website.
You could build the website yourself or you could hire a freelancer. I've personally made the website on Wix and I offer web design as a service if you're interested here's the Fiverr Link.
Let's go over some tips and tricks for turning a website into a reliable income. You can also make money through blogging by advertising and recommending affiliate products, or you can sell your own digital business products.
Blogging is all about effort and you get to earn passive income. Great blogs hold their position for first place on the first page for a while and create a lot of traffic for the website to earn money, but this isn't easy and takes a lot of time. Most important for blogging sites is search engine optimization (SEO). The job of SEO is to improve the quality and quantity of traffic from search engines like Google. The traffic received is completely free. People search online several things for example "How to Make Money Online as a College Student" and then you get a list of blogs that answer that question and the ranking is determined by SEO.
You can also drive traffic from social media, but SEO is most reliable and takes time to learn. Once mastered you can create a lot of money and sell it as a service. Search engine evaluator jobs pay around $50 per hour. So, it's a very useful skill.
I recommend you enroll in online courses to learn more about blogging and SEO.
Here's a list of online courses:
How to Start a Blog - 7 Day WordPress Blog Challenge (Free Blogging Course)
2) Freelance writer or editor
This is a lucrative, flexible job. You have the freedom to choose your schedule and choose the best gig you want. It's a great job to write all kinds of interesting stuff! You can offer your service on freelancing platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. There are many freelance writing jobs available and gain a job easily as you can show your credibility as a college student.
3) Vlog on YouTube
You could be a YouTube vlogger if you enjoy making videos. Your earnings are generated by ads in your videos so you are rewarded for high viewership. The pay rate translates into 3-5 dollars per 1,000 views for the video. There are so many YouTube stars and most of them started from nothing. All you need is your phone to start recording then you can publish your content worldwide.
To start earning money from YouTube you must have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year. So, it's going to take time before you start earning money. You should treat it as a side hustle and not the main source of income to start with.
4) Virtual recruiter
Make your business experience useful by finding the right employees or freelancers. Virtual recruiters are intermediaries between companies with potential employees in your region. You can post available jobs, interview potential employees, check resumes, and arrange fair pay. Virtual recruiters get paid $57000 per year, commission is also included in work so you'll get paid more depending on your experience.
5) Be a Virtual Assistant
You'll make extra cash by working in virtual assistant mode. People have started outsourcing all administrative tasks such as email, organization, research, etc. If this interests you may be wondering how many hours he will work. It only takes computers (which you probably already have), as well as the time to dedicate to admin duties every week.
Virtual assistant jobs are great to go along with your busy college schedule because you can choose when to work and the jobs are fairly easy.
6) Design Online
If you are talented in graphic design and are artistic you can also be a professional web designer and web developer. This opens up many opportunities because almost every business needs designers. You can also sell your designs online as a freelancer or put it in a marketplace to be sold to others for commercial use. You could also create NFTs to be sold on the blockchain.
7) Social Media Manager
Social media managers' salary range: $15-45/hr. Managing all sorts of social media platforms can be fun. It's a great way to meet business people who are passionate. A social media manager is a person whose presence is represented through many platforms. You have to promote sales and content to people who are interested and you can also contact them.
It's a great online job as our generation is experienced in social media. You can go to local businesses and set up accounts for them to promote their business online. With some experience, you can start social media marketing and scale to a full-time business.
8) Search Engine Evaluator
Earn up to $17 an hour analyzing the website's search results. Although algorithms remain continuously updated, the internet remains full of errors. They depend mainly upon human observers for searching for the results and provide feedback for quality, accuracy, and usefulness. This feedback helps designers improve the quality of results to ensure users are being directed to what they want.
9) Invent an App
It's possible for anyone with programming skills to develop a web application to sell to customers on a smartphone. You could make apps to satisfy the specific requirements you're currently facing. It's okay for people to develop apps on this topic. After you have finished the application, sell it on Apple App Store or Google Play. This does require having experience in programming so it's best for computer science majoring college students. You can use your app for a project and publish it online to earn money.
App Store and Google Play require two different languages. Apple requires Swift while Google requires Java. That's where Flutter comes in where you can publish your app on both stores by coding with Flutter. If you enjoy coding then this could make you lots of money with the right marketing.
10) Sell Your Invention or Concept
You could have an amazing product idea, but you don't know what to do with this product. You could submit this idea online for others to purchase and bring it to real life. If people love this idea then you'll get an investment in each final product and earn a lot of money. But it's not as easy as putting out your idea. You will need mock-up drawings, a sample of the product, and it's also best to have a patent to not have your idea stolen by other companies.
Check out these 43 Incredible Companies That Pay For Ideas
11) Do market research online
Market research is an interesting tool for earning cash because companies like getting feedback from college students. In today's time, however, you can also participate with various online tools for marketing and you can also earn just by providing a review.
12) Online tutoring
Get acquainted online and start a tutoring firm. Offer peer-to-peer tutoring to fellow students or connect to homeschool K-12 students. With a career focus, you can also offer a tutorship in the arts, music and social media, fashion, or nutrition.
You can also teach English online which is in very high demand. Being an online tutor, you'll be able to gain teaching experience and will be a great addition to your resume.
Brainfuse is the best overall website for college students to offer tutoring services online.
13) Come up with business name ideas
Many businesses struggle with name recognition despite the fact the name has become so important, that they don't know how to name it. Some websites help them out, but it's not personal and not well researched from online software. You can offer this as a freelance service and you won't need any requirements to set up this gig.
14) Complete online surveys
The answer to this question may vary from the survey online. It is also possible with online survey sites like Swagbucks Surveys or Opinion Outpost. Most surveys are not worth doing, but any extra money is needed for a broke college student. You can cash in your survey money in just a few minutes and you could receive gift cards or a few dollars extra to your bank account.
15) Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization or SEO is a good job online if you are analytical. You can help businesses improve their search engine ranking and you can make more than $100 an hour with your knowledge. SEO is very important for websites to rank on top and online businesses specifically need it the most so they can be found. The SEO ranking is like the location of a physical store. The location can make or break the business. SEO is a game of patience and takes time to learn, but you can turn this into a full-time career online.
16) Become a User Tester
Companies need testers for their website or apps. It's simple for people to register online for test jobs and get matched with the right company for the job. Once you have completed a test, you receive money for your service.
The best website to become a user tester is UserTesting. Sign up now!
17) Find bugs and security flaws online
Similar to user tests, companies pay people to find problems with their website code or hack it. There are big companies such as Google or United Airlines. Just look and report on flaws.
18) PowerPoint Presentation Designer
Create a stellar presentation based on your clients' needs. All you need is to use these basic drag-and-drop skills to perfect! You can present your skills on freelance sites and create an organized PowerPoint. Simplicity is important. Smooth transitions, simple design, and minimal words create a great PowerPoint presentation. The purpose of a PowerPoint isn't to read the script off but to have short introduction summaries and the presenter talks about that subject with images showing insights or catching attention.
19) Answer Trivia Quiz
The easiest way to make a profit here is by playing a trivia game or answering questions. The Swagbucks app actually rewards you with this kind of reward!
These are the 40 Best Trivia Apps for Money and Prizes.
20) Create an Online Course
College students can use their expertise and monetize it online. There are many online course platforms but the best website is Udemy. You can record yourself or the screen and then post it to sell online to the public. I recommend you start by publishing a free course to rack up reviews and make money online. Courses allow you to earn passive income with the chunk of your work creating the online course. Then after the free course, you can move on to paid courses to earn money online.
21) Web Developer
You can earn money by doing web development. If you have no technical skills or knowledge, you can start a course online on Udemy. Although one course does not qualify as a programmer, you will be given a solid foundation in your job and you will feel confident to take on your first client. The best method for new web designers to start small projects, mainly editing existing websites instead of building them.
Now, you don't have to be a complete web developer to start freelance work. This website I've created required zero programming language. Here comes another business you can do! Outsource! I offer building websites on Wix, so if you can find clients then you can reach out to me and we get a deal to create a website where we both benefit.
Here's my Fiverr gig - Design or redesign Wix website.
22) Fiverr Gigs
What's paid: $5-995 per gig Five dollars seems like a little, but tasks requiring less than a minute of your time add up quickly. Those who have expertise can be asked for a higher fee. There can be 3 versions at 3 different price points for each service you're offering. Many Fiverr sellers have made a killing and now freelance full-time. Popular services offered on Fiverr range from web design to graphic design.
You can post online services to Fiverr and won't have to look for clients. Clients look for you! You work on your own schedule. This is the beauty of these online jobs, you get to work whenever you want. Some easy jobs to offer are data entry, virtual assistant, play video games. Some better jobs you can offer are professional financial advice, writing college essays, resume writing services, technical writing, freelance writing, and social media management.
With just a few minutes of setting up gigs and an internet connection, you can start making money online. Start now on Fiverr!
23) Textbook Flipper
Depending upon the type and number of books you sell, texts can be expensive, ranging from hundreds of dollars. What do we do once they have been completed? Some students give it to their university bookstores to resell it for 1-2 dollars. Obviously, a savvy buyer can buy books at low prices or sell them for profit. By looking online and searching through book buyback sites like Book Scouter, the buyer can easily locate the best prices for their textbooks. Find cheap books and sell them to other people.
24) Product Reviewer
Do you like to write about new products? Many legitimate websites offer free review pages. You can register on sites such as Life Points or InboxDollars and answer a few questions about demographic information. Based on the information provided, you receive a product for your testing. You may post the feedback you have on social media or online by posting on blogs. You can even earn money through online surveys, playing games, or even viewing videos by signing up with InboxDollars.
25) Proofreader
Proofreading is the last phase in examining a piece of material before its publication and involves identifying grammar and punctuation errors. It is different than editing, and a top online career option for college graduates. Please look up Proofread anywhere and get free training seven days in advance. With some experience, you can begin booking proofreading jobs. You can even offer these services to college students. It's important to build your connections and friends so you have opportunities to make more money online.
26) Gamer
Make a gaming blog or earn money by playing games at websites such as MistPlay.com. Some people find part-time jobs in the game industry useful for students majoring in graphic design and computer science. It can be quite simple to start an online career with a mobile or laptop computer and some time to work from home. This is great to start making money for college students. If you love gaming then it will be very easy and you can start streaming for several hours and grow your fanbase.
27) Graphic Designer
You do not have to be a professional photographer to make money online. Canva is a free web designing program that helps people develop their designs. Businesses need good graphics for anything from business cards to logos to social media photos. Although Canva is great, it's best to learn Photoshop so you can offer services to bigger clients to earn more money.
28) Data Entry Clerk
This is not the most profitable online job but requires not much skills or experience. Usually, you will need just a laptop. Data entry clerk's main job is to transfer information to excel or organize the sheets. The pay is rather low for data entry and customers look more for quantity over quality because there isn't much quality required.
29) Resume Writer
Many people are confused about how to write resumes. College students feel overwhelming stress with a need to have a perfect resume to enter the workforce. Why not use this as an advantage to solve their problem? This service is extremely lucrative because of how much you earn for how little work you do! All the information you need is provided by the buyer and you have to rearrange it, make it look nice, change the style and wording then you're set to deliver an amazing gig.
30) Dropshipping on eBay
Looking for an easy and free way of making money online? Dropshipping on eBay requires zero capital and is extremely scalable. As we know online shopping has increased year by year and eBay is only behind Amazon for the best e-commerce sites. This is also another way to earn passive income and in fact, you won't even have to do anything. All you have to do is list products on eBay and wait for customers to come. This time instead of offering freelancing gigs we'll be looking for virtual assistants to help us build this business. You make money with every sale and the manufacturer handles the shipping. This is one of the best ways to make money online. To learn more on how to dropship on eBay read my article How to Start dropshipping on eBay - The Beginner's guide.
31) Loan Money
Are you looking to have your money work for you? Do you have some extra money that you won't need? Then with a click of a button, you'll be able to lend your money online. This might not be the best for college students because cash is low, but I wanted to still mention it because it's a very easy way to make money online. If you're looking to loan money then search for "Peer-to-Peer Loan Programs" to become a potential lender.
Which online jobs are best for students?
Wow! You have just been introduced to 31 ways to make money online for college students. Here's my recommendation. I would set up a Fiverr account and post multiple gigs like a virtual assistant, social media management, data entry, and web development just to name a few. Fiverr allows you to post 7 gigs so you should take advantage of that. College students should also consider starting a business online to build a foundation and gain experience. There is a lot of ways to make money online, not just for college students, but everyone can take advantage of the digitized work and achieve financial freedom.