15 Unconventional Ways for Students to Make Money

What Are 15 Unconventional Ways for Students to Make Money?

There’s no way around it: college is expensive. If you’re a college student and you need to earn money for tuition and expenses—or you would just like to have a little more cash to spend on the weekends—there are a few alternative ways to earn an income.

Understanding 15 Unconventional Ways For Students To Make Money

Before you set up a small business, begin advertising and start spending on supplies, check out your school’s student policies to make sure you aren’t running the risk of doing something that’s been outlawed, or find a creative way to get around those requirements and earn a nice income honestly.

Key Takeaways

• Motivated college students have many opportunities to choose from in the form of gigs, small businesses, and part-time jobs.
• Some more common ideas for college students looking for extra income include participating in the gig economy, selling textbooks, tutoring, and selling any specialized skills you may have.
• A few less common ideas include participating in research studies, organizing trips, renting out your parking during athletic events, and selling your student game tickets.

There are many types of opportunities for entrepreneurial college students in the form of gigs, small businesses, and part-time jobs. You can also “mortgage” your future earnings to get money now, in an arrangement called an income share agreement (ISA).

1. Run errands, be a taxi, or deliver

Jobs through the gig economy driving, dog-walking, or food and package delivery are plentiful in many places, pay fairly well, and often have achievable requirements for entry. Take advantage of your flexible schedule and help those on-campus or local residents by offering your services during their workdays.

2. Tutor

If you’re proficient in a specific subject and you enjoy (or at least don’t hate!) teaching, you can tutor other students at your school. But the real money might be in tutoring schoolchildren who live in your college town.

If they’re struggling in an area or just need a little supplemental help to keep them on track they have parents who are willing to pay and often willing to pay a lot more than your on-campus peers.

Approach local schools about tutoring possibilities or consider putting ads in your local paper, libraries, churches, pediatricians’ offices, and other places parents gather.

3. Sell student game tickets

If you attend a big-time football or basketball school you have free money literally in your hands. Because most students get either free tickets or the opportunity to buy extra tickets at discounted prices you can sell those tickets to out-of-town friends or online to fans willing to pay perhaps even more than face value.

Check out your college teams’ message boards, online forums, fan clubs, and sites like Stubhub.com or Craigslist.org.

4. Be the ad

Any business targeting college students is looking for cheap ways to get their attention. That’s where you come in. Consider a variation of this guy’s idea and offer to advertise for local businesses or organizations by wearing a t-shirt with their message. Getting paid for getting dressed? Now that’s a great way of earning an income.

5. Blog

If you’re online a lot anyway and enjoy writing, consider blogging for bucks. It will take some real work to get it started, but if you can find a unique angle to draw readership you can make money through programs like Google Adsense, and AmazonAssociate’s affiliate program.

You can also identify potential advertisers through affiliate program aggregators like Affiliatescout.com. Get good enough and you may even draw the attention of advertisers who will pay to put ads on your site or give you free stuff for you to review.

6. Sell stuff

Sure, you can eBay a few things here and there when you no longer need them, but think about the potential customers right outside your door. For example, could you sell chips and drinks to tailgaters? What about becoming the late-night cookie-baking queen (and delivery service) on campus?

7. Design school stuff

Students, parents, alumni, staffers—there’s a whole universe of people who are fans of your school and you can make money off them by designing stuff they’ll buy, like t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, hats, and jewelry.

Many sites allow you to quickly and easily upload designs and order products that you can sell online through your own website, on-campus at events, or through local groups and organizations.

8. Get paid for your opinion or participation

Professors have to get published in order to get tenure and part of that process often involves running studies—for which they need subjects. Check to see if there are on-campus studies that pay students for participation.

Expand your scope and call local companies or organizations (businesses, associations, museums, and hospitals) to see if they are running studies or organizing focus groups and if you could qualify for participation.

9. Be a valet

If you live in a house with adequate potential parking options, offer to save fans the headache of finding parking by renting out your driveway or yard spot on game days.

10. Teach

If you have a skill that you know other students or local residents may need or in which they may be interested, advertise for a small class, workshop, or one-day seminar at a reasonable price.

There’s a potentially endless list of topics you could teach about—skiing, tennis, writing, acting, web design, knitting, cooking, weight training, scrapbooking, car repair, or anything else you may know about or study. If it goes well, word-of-mouth advertising may boost your attendance and profits in no time.

11. Sell your smarts

You’re probably thinking this is a suggestion to tutor—and that may be a good way for you to make some money—but why work one-on-one when you can reach a wider audience?

Instead of limiting the amount of money you can make to the h.s you can provide one-on-one tutoring, advertise that you’ve aced a class (or more) and sell your notes and study tools to students who need the help.

12. Organize a trip

Find out if there are groups on campus with a common interest and offer (for a fee) to make all the arrangements for a trip to the destination of their choice. It will take some work, including booking airfare, securing ground transportation, reserving lodging and spots at local destinations, and many other tasks—but it can be a fun way to earn some money and help out an on-campus group in the process.

And you could possibly work out the terms of your agreement that you get to come on the trip for free. Make sure you’ve included some trip insurance to cover you both financially and legally in the event that the trip doesn’t go exactly as planned.

13. Sell textbooks

Sell back your textbooks to recoup some of the money you originally laid out, but also offer to collect other students’ textbooks for re-sale, for a small fee, to save them time.

14. Repair cars or sell other specialized skills

It’s a sure bet that the majority of college students who have a car don’t know the first thing about how to maintain them or make minor repairs on their own. If you do, you’re in luck. Make a small investment in tools and supplies and then advertise for reasonably-priced onsite repairs and maintenance work like oil changes.

The same goes for other specialized skills—can you build bunk beds, organize closets, or groom animals? There’s probably a market for your skills nearby.

15. ‘Mortgage’ your future

A new kind of way to raise money to pay for college is the income share agreement (ISA). An ISA provider gives the student money to pay for college, and the student contractually agrees to pay the provider a percentage of their salary for a set period of time. A recent study, however, found racism in how some ISAs were structured, so research them carefully before you sign one.

Read the original article on Investopedia.