7 Ways for College Students to Make Money Online

College isn’t cheap. With the cost of going to school rising every year, it’s hard to find jobs that are both profitable and fit in with your schedule. However, it is not impossible! Today we have compiled a list of 7 ways for college students to make money online that are easy, cost-effective, convenient for student’s busy lives.

Upwork

If you have a natural ability for writing either at a professional level or for marketing use, Upwork is a great way to make money online! This can take up as much time as you want, as you have the option to choose between short and long term projects and full-time contract work.

However, the more extensive projects can pay upwards of $300 or $25/hour.  To begin, just make a profile to highlight your skills, abilities, and previous work experience. From there, you’ll be shown projects that you’d be a good fit for and that match your desired rate. Unlike other freelance websites, Upwork doesn’t charge you a membership fee.

Instead, they give you 20 connects to apply for jobs. After that, connects only cost $.15 apiece and can be bought in bundles of 10, 20,40, 60, and 80. Whether you want to do a one time, $75 article or a three month $10/hour article, Upwork is a great way to work from the comfort of your home while still making some serious cash. You can sign up for Upwork here.

Skillshare

Skillshare is another great way to make money online if you have a skill or interest that you are super passionate in! The Skillshare platform allows you to publish projects and learning-based lessons that are at least 10 minutes long.  This is not time consuming, as lessons only have to be 10 minutes a piece, and the more people you enroll, the more you make so there is no extra work involved.

When people sign up for your class, you earn the revenue from the class fee! While the income is dependent on how many people sign up, most users note that as long as you have 30 minutes of lessons published on time, you will get paid every month. Not only this, but Skillshare even has monthly challenges for teachers to earn prizes if they publish content consistently!

There is also plenty of free content published by Skillshare to help you get started. By having pre-recorded content uploaded, you can have a steady stream of disposable income that requires very little work or attention. You can find the link to register to teach here.

Chegg

If you are a college student, you have probably heard of CheggStudy as a homework help service or at least checked out their textbook prices. But did you know that you can sign up to be a tutor on Chegg? Chegg’s pay starts at $20 an hour. Not only this, but you are even to set your hours.

This means that you can make it as cost-effective (and time effective) as you want. They find students who need help in your area of expertise and pay you for the amount of time spent with them. Not only can you work from your dorm, the library, or even a coffee shop, but they also pay weekly and have over 1000 subjects to choose from. You can sign up here.

Tutor-Me

Tutor-Me is similar to Chegg and is another service that allows you to tutor from home in a subject that you have already mastered. However, they differ in two main ways.

The first is that they give you the option to pick the students you want to tutor, or they can match them to you. The second way it differs from other similar tutoring sites is that they provide you with a two-way rating system. This means that you can rate the student and they can rate you. That way, if you have a terrible experience with the student and they leave you a poor review, you can leave your comments for the next tutor and they won’t completely tank your rating.

Tutor-Me also pays weekly and allows you to pick your schedule. By tutoring online, you are not only making a steady income, but it is a great resume builder for employers looking for mastery in certain subjects. You can sign up for Tutor-Me here.

Online Surveys

While Online Surveys do not produce vast revenue, they are a great way to make cash while you sit and watch a movie or have some extra time over your lunch break. While this is super time effective (most surveys don’t take more than a minute to complete) you should only expect to make about $1-$3 a survey.

There are thousands of sites that offer cash and gift cards in exchange for survey responses, but the three with the highest pay rates in order are InboxDollars (click here), Swagbucks (click here), and Surveytime (click here). All you have to do to begin is create a basic profile with information used in business data such as age, interests, common buys, etc. and the online site will match you with surveys you qualify for.

From there, the company will keep track of your earnings and send you either a check or a direct deposit to an account like PayPal. It’s that simple. Get started today!

Affiliate marketing

If you are good at sales or have a large social media presence, you could make a serious profit off of affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s marketing efforts.

This type of job only requires the amount of time it takes you to make a social media post, but make sure you have a strong following to make a substantial income. While you can go directly to a company you already love and ask if they have any affiliate marketing positions open, you can also go to websites like Awin network (click here to sign up) that match you with brands that already have positions open.

Most likely, the company will give you a promo code that uses your name or is unique to you that keeps track of how many people you bring to their site or sell to. The more people you bring, the more money you make! All you have to do is advertise your product on your platforms, and the profit is substantial.

E-Commerce

Lastly, one of the best ways to make money as a college student is by opening an e-commerce site. If you have a product or craft you are talented in making, you can sell it on Etsy (click here to join).

Etsy allows you to sell your creations from your online store and helps you set shipping costs so that you do not lose money from your profits for cross country or international shipping. Using Etsy can be pretty time consuming based on what you’re selling, but you can make a good profit.

If you are less versed in physical products and better at graphic design, you can upload designs to Redbubble (click here to join) that can be sold as shirts, stickers, buttons, and more!

Redbubble is convenient because it ships the product directly to the customer, and you do not have to worry about getting the product to the post office in time. Selling on Redbubble takes minimal effort and all your sales are pure profit.

Trying a new way of making money online can always be scary but we hope this list helps you choose! With so many options out there I hope this helps you find the perfect job for your crazy schedule and ends your analysis paralysis. Time to get started and just go for it!