Broke college students love making extra money like a fat kid loves cake. I speak from personal experience, and, by the way, skinny kids love cake too. Like many other college students, my bank account ran closer to empty than full throughout my college and grad school years, but I still wanted to have fun without digging myself into a bigger hole.
There are tons of ways to make extra money, but most college students are simply too lazy to take advantage of them. Fortunately, I’ve put together this list of 5 easy ways for college students to make extra money during the school year. There should be something for every type of college student, from lazy to ambitious, on this list.
1. Open a high-yield savings account
This is by far the easiest (and laziest) way to make extra money. All you have to do is open a high-yield savings account, put your money in it, and wait. Each month you’ll earn some extra cash based on your balance. The catch is that you need some money to put into the account in the first place.
If you get a student loan refund, a high-yield savings account is a great place to put that cash. Why let it sit dormant in a checking account when it can be earning you some extra money in a high-yield savings account? You can also get a $25 bonus from ING Direct when you open an account with at least a $250 initial deposit.
2. Get a part-time job
Enough of the laziness, most college students have lots of free time (even more if you skip class). Whether you want to admit it or not, there’s no excuse for not getting a part-time job while you’re in school. Get an on-campus job at a computer lab if you want a low-key, low stress job where you’ll get paid to do your homework … I mean, supervise the computer lab.
During my last two years of undergrad, I had a part-time job, took a full course load, was in a serious relationship, and still managed to graduate with honors. Of course, even though that worked for me, it may not work for you. The key is find a part-time job that allows you to balance school with work and still leaves you with enough time to hang out with your friends.
3. Sell something you don’t need
Used textbooks, CDs, DVDs, video games, iPods, and anything else you might find on eBay. Chances are every college student has at least one thing they don’t need anymore, so sell it for some extra cash. If you want to avoid the hassle of shipping your items, then sell locally by posting your items on the Facebook Marketplace.
4. Make money online
Everyone has probably seen one of those cheesy infomercials about how easy it is to make money online these days. Well, they’re partially true. You can make some extra money online, and it’s pretty easy. However, it’s not going to turn you into a millionaire overnight (or in a week or in a month). If you put enough effort into it though, you may be able to pay back your student loans with the money you make online. Here is a small sample of the many opportunities out there:
- Complete offers at CashCrate. I’ve made over $4000 through CashCrate since joining.
- Write articles for Associated Content and earn money based on the performance of your articles.
- Make videos, post them on Revver, and get a cut of the ad revenue.
5. Do freelance work
House sitting, pet sitting, tennis lessons, commissioned art works, tutoring, web design, knitting, computer repair, or whatever else you’re good at doing. The beauty of freelance work is that you have the opportunity to do something that you really enjoy, and you get paid for it. The biggest challenge is finding these opportunities (a.k.a. tricking people into paying you to do stuff that’s actually fun).
Networking is your best friend when it comes to freelance work. One of your professors may need someone to house/pet sit while they’re out of town. A friend of a friend may know someone that wants a website. That’s exactly how I ended up getting paid to put together a wedding website for a grad student during my undergrad years.
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Thanks for the tips, I should have taken advantage of some of those when I was in college, and am trying to convince my younger brothers who are in college to take advantage of the free time they have to make some extra money.
Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com
Some additions to #4.
Revenue sharing sites like http://www.flixya.com and Hubpages.com are great ways to generate Google Adsense revenue without needing to host a website. Also great that they have done the hardwork for users to enjoy the benefits. Not sure how Flixya makes money, but they pay 100% of the ad revenue to users.
I have heard that there are some issues with Revver lately, so not sure its worth posting videos there. Check out: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/01/is-revver-on-the-fritz/ (read the comments…doesnt look good)
Anyway, good post.
-Roger
I’m going to forward your article to my college student son. Any way he can make some money is a good thing!
are there any suggestions for hs students?
You know, since I’ve found this site I’ve been referring all my college-aged clients over here. I live in Austin, so I’ve got several colleges in my vicinity. Hopefully these kids will take a look and find some useful information.
Something else to add to this list is participating in medical trials. Some college students may find them fairly lucrative and a quiet place to get some studying done. The downside is that some may require overnight stays, but if you don’t mind that and being a bit of a guinea pig, it could be an option to help offset the costs of college. A friend from high school did this all of her freshman year and really saved up quite a bit of money.
Kristy: Thanks. I’m glad that you find this site useful enough to refer your clients here. Getting feedback like that motivates me to keep writing useful (and entertaining) content.
Participating in medical trials is a great addition to the list. Throughout college and grad school, there were always ads for medical trials in the school paper, and they paid really well if you qualfied for them.
These are great tips!
Thanks,
Nate
Excellent suggestions- and who DOESN’T love cake??
I am an adult who decided to go back to school at the age of 35 . I am already working a full time job and going to school 3 nights a week. Any suggestions for me on ways to make some extra (much needed) cash?
I’m a current undergraduate student at a big research university, and similar to medical trials I try to participate in studies in the psychology department. They tend to pay about $20 for an hour-long study right there on campus (that usually lasts only 45mins) and usually involve sitting at a computer and answering questions — painless! A friend of mine does similar studies for our graduate business school, which is too far away from my classes for me to go to, but I think they pay the same way. These pay less than medical trials, but more people qualify, they are super easy, and take very little time.
Does anyone know what I can do to make extra money in my area that can involve my kids? I am not looking for online surveys, secret shopper, or scams. Just fun things we can do to make extra money together as a family.
Does anyone have any ideas on how I can make a little extra money (or a lot!) at home until I find a full time job? I am not talking about investment opportunities or the like. If I had money to invest, I wouldn’t be looking for a way to make money.
Nice site, i wrote a little blog on how to make money online using cashcrate. Lets link up!
http://cashcrategenuis.blogspot.com/
The best thing I did was open an Ameritrade account and start trading/learning about the stock market.
Instead of making $9/hr at the library, I educated myself in the stock market and traded. I made a lot, and LOST a lot, but the education was invaluable.
If it wasn’t for messing around in the market, I would never be making the money I’m making now.
Learn about the markets!
I think that would be fun and expensive. Believe me when I tell you that the entire hen weekend/bachelor/bachelorette party is overrated. It is a lot of money and is not that great.
Unfortunately, when your an international college student you cant get a part time job and cash crate needs a credit card for a lot of them
A simple way is to make $20-$50 today, and $50-$200 within a day or two.
The greatest benefit of this program is that you make money online in a timely manner. Most people online search for ways to make money quick or instant. As a lot of people approach the internet in a time when they are quite desperate
But this time, I would like to help the people that aren’t so smart with blogging and aren’t so keen on writing for money. In fact. If I would look at the figure of 97% of all internet bloggers that fail online, it would appear that most people are gross when it comes to blogging! http://100kblogging.com/?hop=chrisd10
Give it a try!
I just took a quick look at it and it does seem like a viable option for someone needing a quick paying part time job they can do online.
I like the make money online thing the best. I think that has to work out the best for all students as they can set their own schedule etc.. People do it all the time!
Thank you so much for passing the article along, that is awesome! I hope it helps! I remember college being tough as far as money goes, maybe it won’t have to be for them.
Just wanted to throw this out there: another good way to earn some money during your spare time is to become a ChaCha guide at chacha.com. All you have to do is pass a readiness test. You can log in whenever you want. I’ve only been doing it a week and I’ve already made close to $70. Its a lot of fun and perfect for college students since you can answer questions in between classes and stuff.
Hope this helps someone. If you decide to join use holygirl135@aol.com as your referral email to join my team!
To call up and cancel your account, do you need to live in the US?
Nice list. I give away a free report on my site also listing great ways for college students to make money. There are plenty of ways to make money in college, but the hard part is doing it without interfering with your classes. Good luck to everyone trying to scrap some extra cash together during college.
Most people online search for ways to make money quick or instant. As a lot of people approach the internet in a time when they are quite desperate
I sell UK and EU and US dumps. My dumps are available with the pin and without the pin but with the pin it will cost extra.
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I go to Eastern Michigan University and yeah! college sucks when your broke! I spent ALL NIGHT searching online “how to make money” …all trash!! take it from me.
the only website that actually paid me was this one Click Here!
The website looks annoying in the beginning but believe me, if I can do it so can you. Check it out. I FINALLY found a frikken website that actually makes some money. So far I made $839.34 within 40 days.
I know I know its not much to brag, but hey its not like I did much LOL. Im just trying to show everyone what I did because reading blogs like these helped me out a lot! All I did was blog using this guys secrets. It’s working good so far and asking anyone if they know any other sites?
I am happy to find this very useful for me, as it contains lot of information. I always prefer to read the quality content
tr
Freelance sites are absolutely a great idea. Almost any skill can be offered online through freelance and micro-job sites. A great new site is http://www.dropa20.com. They let anyone list almost anything for free, the only stipulation is that the price be set at $20. Check it out, it’s free.
Your right about that these are great ways that are easy to save money and make it while in school.
Wonderful post! Lots of great info. Do you thoughts if i link to you on my website?
This is not a scam. You do not need to spend any money to participate or provide any personal information. There are no commitments. We don’t want your email to spam you either! Open a new email you’ll never use if you doubt that. Simply join a growing number of people who earn a little extra cash viewing and rating advertisements. To learn more check us out,
http://www.godricandson.com
Same Student
I earn money the old fashion way by staying at home and doing random surfing and it doesn’t hurt at all.I must say that when I first went to the Swagbucks website, I was a little confused and somewhat skeptical. It mentioned things like being a “premier rewards site” and a leading online search engine. But if they were a search engine, then how does one generate the rewards from? And why have I never heard of them? Well, it turns out that Swagbucks is indeed pretty legit.
It’s amazingly simple. You just sign up and you can either go to their website each time you want to gain points for surfing the web, or you can just download the Swagbucks toolbar and do your searches from there.
Then each time you do a search using the Swagbucks search engine, you gain Swag Bucks which are good towards a wide variety of prizes, including everything from GPS systems to memorabilia to gift cards to actual cash via PayPal.
During the writing of this review, I installed the Swagbucks toolbar on my computer at home. At the completion of this review, I had already gained 410 Swag Bucks! Now, I’ve only got 40 to go before I can get a $5 Amazon gift card!
Use this referal link to get a bonus of swagbucks for signing up!
http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/tannguyen1
I think that too many college students end up working menial jobs, for low hourly rates, which means they work longer hours, and that in turn can have a negative impact on their studies, which defeats the object.
Here’s a suggestion for how college students can earn their way through, by specializing in new media and marketing in a sector that’s relevant to their field of study (and interest).. http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/make-money-in-college-and-graduate-debt-free/
The theory is, you can earn more by creating work that’s close to your major skillset. That lets you work fewer hours at higher value. And the work can actually complement the student’s studies.
Best regards,
Ben
Those are great ideas to make extra money thanks.
Wow. I’m in College now, and as an out of state student its definitely hard to get that extra cash. Hopefully these tips will help. So far, I’ve done REALLY well on CashCrate though so I hope that I can continue to get money from there. Its just so easy, you know? Its like a take a couple of short surveys and free offers each day and I get paid for it. It’s definitely adding up, and highly recommend CashCrate to anybody, not only desperate students haha, who just wants little extra cash to get buy. Here’s the site: http://www.cashcrate.com/2898242
I hope you have as much success as I do. Thanks again for the tips. Every little bit of money helps, thats for sure
Gyanwave organizing an online mathematics olympiad . For all who want to test there skills in maths you can register from the site
Those are some great ideas. One of the best ways to create a residual income for yourself while in college is to start writing blogs and use affiliate marketing or ads on your page. This way when you get out of college (or high school), you will have already accumulated a solid income for yourself. You won’t be as stressed as your former classmates are when looking for a job. You might not even need a job if your blog creates enough income for you. OnlineMoneyTrip. Learn how to make income blogging.
I use ING Direct for my banking also. They are extremely easy to use and they have some of the best rates out there! I just wish the economy would be better so I would be getting more than 1% interest on my accounts!
Keep up the great work!
I was making money by selling lecture notes on a third party website. It won’t pay the rent but I can usually walk away with an extra $100 bucks in my pocket. That is a couple tanks of gas. You can sign up for a website like that at Notehall http://www.notehall.com/app/EconBruin1138.
At first , I thought it was going to be a scam but the people there are really nice and they answered all of my questions. It’s the easiest part-time job in the world because you’re studying anyway, right? Or at least, you should be
One thing is that one of the most common incentives for using your cards is a cash-back as well as rebate provision. Generally, you get 1-5% back with various acquisitions. Depending on the credit card, you may get 1% back again on most expenses, and 5% in return on buying made using convenience stores, gasoline stations, grocery stores as well as ‘member merchants’.
http://collegecashes.blogspot.com/
Hey if anyone wants some other ideas on how to make easy college cash here are some!
Same Student
I earn money the old fashion way by staying at home and doing random surfing and it doesn’t hurt at all.I must say that when I first went to the Swagbucks website, I was a little confused and somewhat skeptical. It mentioned things like being a “premier rewards site” and a leading online search engine. But if they were a search engine, then how does one generate the rewards from? And why have I never heard of them? Well, it turns out that Swagbucks is indeed pretty legit.
It’s amazingly simple. You just sign up and you can either go to their website each time you want to gain points for surfing the web, or you can just download the Swagbucks toolbar and do your searches from there.
Then each time you do a search using the Swagbucks search engine, you gain Swag Bucks which are good towards a wide variety of prizes, including everything from GPS systems to memorabilia to gift cards to actual cash via PayPal.
During the writing of this review, I installed the Swagbucks toolbar on my computer at home. At the completion of this review, I had already gained 410 Swag Bucks! Now, I’ve only got 40 to go before I can get a $5 Amazon gift card!
Use this referal link to get a bonus of swagbucks for signing up!
http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/tannguyen1
i want to make easy way to money
great ways to make some extra cash!
You made some good points there. I did a search on the subject and found most persons will consent with your website.
I’d say skip the fancy gourmet coffee
Simply buy or rent used textbooks.
Excellent post. I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed! Very helpful information specially the last part
I care for such info much. I was seeking this certain information for a very long time. Thank you and good luck.
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