10 Online Jobs For Students to Earn Money

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online jobs for students

College was the best time of my life. Fortunately, I never really experienced being a broke college student. I always had a side hustle or a part-time job. Everyone student wants to make more money, and the internet is a virtual gold mine of opportunities. There are tons of online jobs for students to earn money out there. You just have to take some time to find them, then figure out what you like and can do depending on your schedule. Today, I want to go over 10 online jobs for students to earn money. 

Online Jobs For Students to Earn Money

Freelance Writing

If you have a class schedule that gives you a lot of downtime, you might consider becoming a freelance writer. Freelance writing jobs are easier to get than ever before because people are constantly building new websites and they all need content. The thing with that is that easy isn’t always good. You want to make sure that you get jobs where you have good clients. There is a huge difference when it comes to good and bad clients. I’ve worked with both before. Working with a client that communicates and lets you know exactly what you want can be a Godsend. 

You also want to make sure that you find freelance opportunities that pay well. Some clients or sites will try to charge you $15 or $20 per article. Shoot for something higher. You’ll thank yourself for doing that. To get started with your freelance writing, you can check out Upwork and Fiverr. They are two places where you should be able to find clients.

If you have your own blog, you can use that as a portfolio. That may get you some freelance work soon.

Start Your Blog With Bluehost Today

Book Covers

Creating book covers can be a great business if you are good at graphic design. Create a hundred or so and then upload them all to a website like The Book Cover Designer. When a book cover sales, you get 70% of the money. That’s not a bad deal because they are doing all the work.

You can also sell them on your own website. You can either sell them as exclusive book covers and replace them with a new design when someone buys them, or you can sell them non-exclusively for cheap. There are multiple options for you.

Transcription

Next up on this list of online jobs for students to earn money is transcriptions. Medical transcription isn’t the only kind of transcription job that is out there. There are some companies that are always hiring people to transcribe audio files from seminars, transcribe videos for closed captioning, and much more. You can do this while you aren’t in class or on the weekends. 

Buy Items & Sell on eBay

Buying items that people are selling at yard sales or on Craigslist (check the “free” section) and then listing them on eBay will allow you to make an income while you are in class. I’ve been selling on eBay for years. I wish I would have started when I was in college. I would have been able to use that money instead of student loans.

One thing that I want you to remember is that you will have to spend some time buying items and shipping them when they are sold, but for the most part, it’s not too much hard work. Once the semester is over you can also sell your old books on eBay. You can also check outside the dorms when it’s time for students to move out. You may be surprised, but people leave a lot of things.  You never know what kind of treasures you can find. 

Related Reading: What to Sell on eBay: 45 Items to Flip

Install Apps

Believe it or not, you could get paid for installing apps. Apps like SavvyConnect pay you up to $180 per year to keep them installed, while Nielsen Mobile Panel (the TV rating measurement) will pay you up to $50 per year to install their app and then browse the web as you normally would.

Sign up for Nielsen here

Another app that you can sign up for is Robinhood. Robinhood is an app that allows you to invest from your phone. New users get a free share of stock when they create their account. You also get more shares every time you refer a new person to the app. If you happen to start investing, make sure that you do your research. Also, only invest what you can afford to lose.

Sign up for Robinhood today

Buy Stuff Online

There are a few tools out there that will let you get money for your online buys back. Paribus is a good example. It checks your email for receipts, and when you purchase from one of the 16 retailers on their list (like Amazon and Target), you get money back.

Another great cashback site is Rakuten. They have tons of stores that you can get cashback from. They are also giving new users a $10 bonus when they sign up.

Sign up for Rakuten

Drive for Uber/Lyft

This is definitely something that you can do if you are a college student. While it’s technically not an online job for students to earn money, I still think that it’s a good fit for you. As a college student, you probably have a lot of downtime. Instead of drinking and partying that whole time, use it to make some money with Uber or Lyft. If you have a car, you can make a killing if you live in a big college town. There’s money to be made. Students will be partying and going to games, so you can expect to busy a lot of the year.

Sign up for Uber

Sign up for Lyft

Participate in Medical Testing

The key idea is to take a specific drug or do a specific treatment protocol and then submit reports once a week or so. In other words, you’ll be paid while you continue to live your normal life. If you have a small medical issue, this may be the gig for you.

Online Surveys

If you are looking for beer or party money, filling out online surveys is for you. You won’t get rich from this online gig, but you can make some weekend spending money with it. There are several places where you can sign up to complete online surveys. Below are the three companies that I suggest.

Swagbucks

Survey Junkie

Opinion Outpost

Lose Weight

We’ve made it to the thing on the list of online jobs for students to earn money. If you want to make some money losing weight, trying websites like FitBit or HealthyWage is the perfect option. You get money after you lose a certain amount of weight. 

Money can be hard to come by while you’re a college student. That doesn’t have to be the case. Each of these online gigs can help you make and save some cash. If your schedule allows it, try out multiple ways. Then, go with the one that you like. As long as your grades are good, hustle as long as you like. You may even get to the point where you don’t have to ask your Mom or Dad for money anymore.

In what ways will you try to make money?

11 Comments

  1. I like the Pact app too – you get paid for recording trips to the gym and what you eat everyday. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and I’ve made $8.21. It won’t break the bank, sure, but it’s nice beer money and it gets me to go out and exercise (to work off those beer calories…lol).

    1. The Pact app sounds like easy money.

  2. Ms. DivorcedonFIRE says:

    I personally don’t reccomend clinical trial participation as a side gig. There are few studies that are as simple as you describe, and taking an unapproved drug involves risks to your health over and above those you would face taking an approved, well-studied medication. While clinical trials are important and absolutely critical to the safety of our medicines, it’s important to really consider the risks to you before agreeing to participate in any study. Unless it’s a very simple survey study, a decision to be in a study should generally take into account more than how much money you will make by participating.

  3. Great ideas Jason! My favorite side hustle while working is freelance writing and blogging. If you don’t go out to lunch with anyone and take your lunch break alone, it’s a REALLY great way to make money online during your lunch break because you likely would just read or even work during your lunch break.

  4. Thanks for writing about this. I’d say YES, getting free stuff online can be said to be making
    money online. Maybe not exactly the same, but somewhat similar.

  5. Great post! Really insightful. I have not monetized by blog in any way, I didn’t even know where to begin. but you’ve given some helpful tips

  6. Great list! Now I have a fair idea on how to take the first step. Thanks for the helpful post!

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