Working your way through college is one of the things you need to do to graduate with a minimal amount of debt. However, as a busy college student penciling in time to work can be hard to do and can definitely slow down the time it takes to get your degree.
The solution? Get an online job.
When you get an online job you can generally set your own hours. If you’re a self-motivated person then this is definitely a plus. And if you can strategically base your online job around the skills you already have, you stand the chance to make a lot more money than you would waiting tables or working in a department store.
To give you some starting ground here are five online jobs for college students.
Microjobs
Then there are also a ton of other “microjobs.” These jobs pay per task and vary wildly. The good thing is that you can normally choose what you want to do and work when you want.
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk – In this program people posts easy jobs for fairly low amounts of money. These jobs can range from writing to product categorization. You get to choose which ones you want to do. The amount of money you earn depends upon how many task you do each day.
PineCone Research Group – PineCone is a research company that is specifically looking for 18-24 year olds to participate in online research studies. If you’re 18-24, you can get paid $3 per survey online – and it takes just a few minutes. This is a great way to build a supplemental income.
PinCone Research Over 24 Group – If you’re over 18-24, you can still apply, but there aren’t as many great surveys to fill out.
Swagbucks – This sounds crazy, but Swagbucks is a great way to do microjobs and earn some side money. Basically, you get paid in “SB” for doing things online – taking surveys, searching the Internet, and more. You can earn giftcards from $5 to $50 to major retailers pretty quickly. Plus, when you sign up through THIS LINK RIGHT HERE, you get $5 bonus immediately.
Blogging And Social Media
Creating a blog and dominating social media is a great way to earn money while in college. This blog you’re reading right now was started in the back row of a college classroom at UCSD, and now earns over $100,000 every year.
Plus, you already know the stories of YouTubers who earn over $100,000, Instagram users who get paid $1,000s to post pics, and more.
The bottom line is that blogging and social media are lucrative. What most people don’t realize is that it’s also really cheap (or free) to start. The only thing you’re investing is your time.
If you want to start a blog, check out our free guide on How To Start A Personal Website Or Blog. We used Bluehost to start because you get a free domain name and cheap hosting at just $2.95 per month.
And if you have questions, feel free to ask!
Online Tutoring
Tutoring is a great option for college students. If you’re not wanting to go the traditional route of finding your own clients to tutor you can sign up with an online service.
The pay varies depending upon your knowledge and certain areas of knowledge are more in demand than others.
Here are a few places to try if you want to find an online tutoring job:
If you don’t think that tutoring is a great option for you, another variation on this is selling your class notes.
There is one main company that allow you to sell your class notes online and make money: Study Soup. Both allow you to upload your class notes and sell them to others looking for notes and information about the class.
Data Entry
Data entry covers a wide scope of work. It entails entering data in some sort of a system for a business. The type of data you enter and the systems you use will widely vary from company to company.
Since data entry jobs don’t require much specialized knowledge they aren’t the best paying online jobs.
However, if you think data entry is something you’d enjoy doing you can apply for a data entry job at the following places:
- https://workers.virtualbee.com/
- http://www.clickworker.com/become-a-clickworker/
- http://www.diondatasolutions.net/opportunities.html
Resume Writing
Resume writing is an in demand skill commonly needed among college graduates! While you can find some online resume writing jobs you might be better off offering your services to fellow classmates.
You can apply for resume writing jobs here:
- http://www.resumeedge.com/work-for-us/
- http://www.writerbay.com/resume-writing-jobs.html
Before You Start – Ask Yourself This Questions
“What am I good at?”
If you want to land a good online job that pays a fair amount you should be doing something that you’re good at. Let your skills shine through.
You may have to test the waters a little but you’ll eventually find an online job that works well for you.
P.S. If you need some more side hustle ideas check out this post! We also have a list of 100 jobs for college students as well.
moneystepper says
Tutoring online is a great idea for students. You can also find gigs through Craigslist and other sites. It is fairly well paid and you can flex it very well around your own schedule.
Great advice asking “what am I good at”. This is the only way to earn good money online. Work out your specialism and you can easily market yourself and your services through sites like elance or odesk and earn good money with a side hustle.
Michelle says
These are all great ideas! I wish I would have done something online when I was doing my undergraduate work. It probably would have been much better for time management for me.
Joseph Hogue says
Great post Alexa,
There is a whole industry built around blogging assistance. As bloggers you and I know this well, huh? Tons of info from sites like MOZ and others on how to assist with a blog.
My advice would be to pick an area: SEO, SMM, writing, etc and just start reaching out to bloggers. You’ll have to compete against some low-pay labor from Asia but if you can provide quality service, you’ll be able to charge a little more.
Freelance writing is pretty easy to get into as well. Check out the Problogger job board (not affiliated) for jobs.
Michelle says
There are lots of postings on websites for college students. It may take a while to find the right job, but the opportunities are out there.