20 Online Jobs For College Students

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

There are a lot of great jobs online that don’t need any investment for moms and dads, however, the most suitable online jobs for college students tend to be more flexible so they don’t interfere with school. 

According to Forbes, 2020 student loan statistics, reports that the student loan debt in 2020 is now about $1.56 trillion. This student loan debt is held by 1 in 4 (45 million) Americans. Most students finance their college education by taking out student loans.

If you happen to be a college student with debt, don’t panic. It is definitely possible to make extra money to help you pay off your student loans and become debt-free. 

If you need help paying for school and don’t have the time to commit to a full-time job, I have compiled a list of legitimate jobs online where students can make money. This list will give you an idea of where to start your job search.  

Some people prefer to work traditionally, rather than online, but, online jobs you can do from home offer some of the best opportunities.

This is mainly due to the flexible working hours these jobs provide. 

The great thing about some of these jobs is that you determine how much you earn per hour, and with sites like Fiverr and Upwork, you can start your own online business.

Online Jobs for College Students (Zero money to invest)

In this list I compiled, I also referenced college students who run their own successful business online and have financial freedom from doing so. If you don’t have any capital to invest, here are some jobs you can do that don’t require any money.

1. App Installation on Mobile Devices

As a college student, one of the simplest ways to earn money is by installing an application on your mobile device.

An amazing company that pays you to install an app on your device is Nielsen Computer & Mobile panel. You will automatically be entered into a sweepstake when you install the app. Nielsen app passes on the date you provide to companies to improve their products and services.  

Nielsen Computer and Mobile panel also gives away $10,000 worth of prizes each month. You stand a chance of winning fantastic prizes by installing their app on every electronic device you use on the internet, such as your phone and your computer.

I have done surveys for Nielson and each time, I had a choice to select a $12 gift from a list of stores provided. Not bad for a few minutes of my time.

2. Freelance Proofreader

A proofreader reads manuscripts and other documents carefully to make sure the material is free of grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and other errors that the original writer may have overlooked.

A freelance proofreader is self-employed and works for various companies, going over various documents from the comfort of their home. An experienced freelance proofreader is Caitlin Pyle, founder of Proofread Anywhere. Caitlin makes over $50,000 a year by simply proofreading content from home while still being able to enjoy vacations. 

Proofreading is one of the most practical jobs online for college students as it helps you utilize your grammar skills while making money.

There is a FREE 45-minute workshop by Caitlin that shows beginners how to make money by proofreading documents from home.  

 Click here to get instant access to her FREE workshop!

3. Online Tutoring

Teach others online is not only for teachers. You can still teach online and make money as a college student. The internet has made teaching English to young kids from wherever you are possible.

As long as you have headphones, internet, Skype installed on a computer, and some free time on your hands, you’re good to go! There are many companies online that let you choose your teaching hours.

Your schedule may be a bit tight as a student, but as long as you can make out 3 to four hours a day, you can tutor online and make money.

There are companies such as VIPKid which hire graduates who have a Bachelor’s degree. You can also tutor if you have no experience or degree Magic Ears hires college students who have no experience or degree as tutors!

Do you have a Bachelors’s degree and teaching experience? Click here to start earning with VIPKid!

No degree but you still want to tutor? No worries! Click here to join Magic Ears and start earning today!

4. Online Surveys

Online surveys are also an amazing way for college students to earn extra cash in the summer or during their spare time. These surveys can be completed in 20 to 30 minutes and are very simple to do.

On average, survey takers earn about $5 to $10 per each survey. Some surveys, however, can pay as high as $100 for each survey taken.

Several market research companies pay you to give your opinions on products and services.

You will provide feedback on products and services that can be used daily, even as a student. As a result, it will be easy for you to review things such as electronics, food items, or even hotel services. It’s that easy.

Vindale Research is one such survey companies that pay high for taking surveys. The company has focus meeting groups for you to join in.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea, especially as they are willing to pay a high amount of money per each survey.

Other high paying survey companies you can check out include:

• Swagbucks 
• VIP Voice
• Pinecone Research
• Vindale Research
• Survey Junkie

5. Fiverr

I began with Fiverr.com because it is one of the best places to find jobs online for students. Fiverr is a marketplace online where people sell freelance services at a starting price of $5.

Some of the jobs that do well on Fiverr include graphic designing, SEO (search engine optimization) services, app creation, website building, writing, and translation.

If you’re unsure of what to sell or the services to offer on Fiverr, you should outline your passion and interests on paper then narrow down to the 1 or 2 that will be profitable.

Although most services begin at $5, you can charge as high as $1500 depending on the job. Most times, jobs that cost that much are big graphic design projects or programming work.

The best thing about Fiverr is that you get to deliver on your own time. This is very convenient for college students you decide the delivery time. And, this is huge for college students who may have a tight schedule. That is one of the reasons part-time online jobs are always better for college students.

On Fiverr, the standard delivery time for a project is 3 days, however, if you feel this will affect your schoolwork, you can set the delivery time to 5 or 7 days. If you do really good work, clients won’t mind waiting.

Equally, you can set your delivery time to 24 hours or a day and charge clients extra for express delivery.

Still don’t believe Fiverr is the place for you?

There are people who have turned this into their full-time work such as Sean Carney, Ithaca College student. Here’s an article on 15 Great Entrepreneur Fiverr Success Stories that should be enough inspiration for you to start working with Fiverr.

6. Freelance Writing

One other amazing online job for students is becoming a freelance writer.

Freelance writing jobs are in high demand and are a great part-time job option for students in college. A lot of bloggers and website owners need content for their blogs or websites but are too occupied or too busy to write.

You can take advantage of this skill as a college student and make money by writing online.

Consistent writing will also benefit you as you will become knowledgeable about a lot of topics, at the same time, earn you good money.

There are freelance writing websites such as Hire Writers and TextBroker that have created conducive writing environments for freelance writers to work on articles or blog posts topics that are of interest to them.

When you start as a writer, you will earn about $20 to $50 per article, as you begin to progress, gaining more knowledge and building your online writing portfolio, your prices can go as high as $100 per article.

Also, if you don’t have enough time on your hands but want to earn money as a freelance writer, you can put together a team of good writers, search for writing jobs on sites such as Upwork and outsource these jobs to the writers.

Initially, it may take some time to get the process going, but it’s all about consistency. If you keep at it, you build your online portfolio and get more clients, earning you a considerable amount of money.

If you need guidance or need a pointer in the right direction, you can take Gina Horkey’s writing course: 30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Success.

This course will teach you how to begin and run your own successful business as a freelance writer without exhausting yourself.

7. Blogging

Blogging is a surefire way to share knowledge and at the same time, earn money. If you know about a particular topic and desire to share your knowledge with the world, you should start blogging.

Starting a blog requires some investment initially and the money you need can be raised by making use of the other methods of making money online that I have outlined. You can save up your earnings and invest in your blog to get started.

If you’re already a freelance writer, content creation for your blog shouldn’t be a problem.

All you need to do is sign up for web hosting, install WordPress, start your blog, create helpful content then promote the posts to your audience. Platforms like Facebook and Pinterest are great for promotions.

Pinterest, in my opinion, is the best option for new bloggers who want to promote their content.

You can take this Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course to get started. It’s an amazing course that teaches you all you need to know concerning driving traffic to your blog. Traffic is very necessary for bloggers as traffic translates to sales and sales mean money for bloggers.

Initially, you may earn about $300 per month, but as you continue to create more content and grow your audience, your income will begin to grow as well.

Some people started off earning $100 monthly from their blogs but now rake in more than $10,000 from blogging.

One of such people is Alexis Gardner, owner of Fitnancials.com. She makes $10,000 every month from her blog and paid off $40,000 of debt including student loan debt by 25. She has rebranded her site to teach others how to get out of debt. 

8. Virtual Assistant

As a student, you can complete a series of tasks online for clients and earn money from it. There is a high demand for virtual assistants online.

This may be a bit more time consuming and demanding, but there are awesome companies such as Fancy Hands that will let you set the time most convenient for you. Virtual assisting is a very good job opportunity for students.

You can finish your virtual assistant tasks early in the morning or the evening so you wouldn’t be too distracted.

As a beginner, you can earn about $12 to $15 hourly while working as a virtual assistant. Your duties will include scheduling appointments, writing articles, creating blog content, managing websites, and replying to emails.

These tasks may vary according to the client, but those are the standard tasks a virtual assistant is expected to take care of.

Unsure of where to start?

Here is the  30 days or less to virtual assistant success training.  This course is well detailed and will teach you how to go about successfully starting your own virtual assistant business.

You can also check out  150+ services you can offer as a virtual assistant. It’s an amazing resource and I encourage you to take advantage of it while it is still free.

9. Transcription

When working as a transcriptionist, you get paid to listen to recordings and other audio files such as lectures, webinars, and interviews then type them as word documents. Transcriptionists earn about $12 to $15 hourly as beginners.

To work as a transcriptionist, you need to know how to type fast, listen attentively, and pay much attention to detail.

There are different types of transcription. The most common is general transcription. As a beginner, this is the best place to start.

If you are a law or medical student however, you can choose to do transcription that is peculiar to your field. Medical transcription requires some training, which CareerSteps offers.

Also, for legal transcription, there is a legal transcription e-course by Janet Shaughnessy that shows you the basics of legal transcription.

Want to start earning by doing general transcription? There are opportunities for college students to work as part-time transcriptionists on sites like Fiverr.com and Upwork.

There is a FREE 7-lesson general transcription e-course by Janet Shaughnessy that helps beginners become expert transcriptionists. This course at transforms beginners into fully-fledged transcriptionists. The course will teach you the basics of becoming a transcriptionist and how to earn money from home while doing it, even as a college student. You should check it out and the best part is it’s completely FREE!

10. Instructor or Course Creator

Course creation appears to be high in demand these days and everyone is having a piece of the pie. If you know a particular topic, you can make short 10 to 20 minutes videos that teach people more effective ways to go about certain things.

There are platforms such as Teachable and Udemy that make it easy for you to create your courses and sell them to make money.

Bloggers like Michelle Gardner, owner of Making Sense of Cents, and Alex & Lauren of Create and Go earn six figures, and a huge part of their money comes from them selling their signature online courses.

Michelle makes over $100,000 every month and most of it comes from her Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course. Alex and Lauren also make thousands of dollars monthly from selling courses too.

These are some of Alex and Lauren’s best-selling courses that you can check out;

• Pinterest Avalanche – Helps you generate traffic to your blog using Pinterest.
• Six Figure Blogger – Teaches you how to create digital products
• Make Money Blogging for Beginners – Teaches you how to monetize your blog.

11. Search Engine Evaluator

When working as a search engine evaluator, your job involves you determining how suitable Google search results are when people type in words or phrases in the search bar.

Google hires people to ensure the results gotten when the search engine is used are relevant to the searched words or phrases.

The average pay for this role starts from about $12 hourly, even for college students. To begin earning as a search engine evaluator, check out this post from The Penny Hoarder on how to get paid $12/hour as a search engine evaluator. You can also read this one from Smart Cents Mom about search engine evaluator jobs.

12. Online Translator

If you’re good at learning different languages, then this is the perfect job for you. As a student in college, you can earn money from wherever you are with your language skills! Amazing!

Technology today has made it easier for you to get paid as a translator, no matter what country you live in.

If you are bilingual, you can translate from Chinese, German, or French to English, vice versa, no matter where you are in the world.

All you need to do is get whatever material you are required to translate, then provide your client with work that you have helped to write out in another language.

Are you interested in working as a translator?

Check out this article on how to make money as a translator and work from home also, you can read this post from Money Pantry on 30 Online Translation Jobs: Get Paid Up to $43,590 to translate.

13. Website Testing

Another amazing way for students to earn money online is website testing. You can work as a part-time website tester and make a substantial amount of money. Once the test results are approved, you can be paid $5 to $20 depending on the user test project.

Website testing involves visiting websites or using apps to perform certain tasks following given instructions.

These tasks can range from simple things such as visiting a website and observing its loading speed to using an app and giving your opinions through a microphone.

Check this out: website testing jobs for beginners.

14. Flipping Websites

You can flip websites to earn money part-time as a student in college. Jenn Leach made $100,000 from flipping websites as a part-time job.

If you’re unsure of how to go about it, there is an online course by Jenn that shows you how to launch and make a profit off selling blogs. 

This course, Website Flippers University teaches you the basics of building, growing, and selling blogs. You also have access to all her strategies for flipping websites that helped her make so much working part-time.

Website flipping is one of the best options for college students who want to make money online. You get to work from home and can choose the most convenient time for you to work.

15. Item Flipping for Profit

You can buy items for a low price at one market, then resell them at a higher price in another market. This is known as item flipping.

Melissa Tonini and her husband Rob own Flea Market Flipper a successful flipping business where they made $79,000 in sales on eBay in 2019 working only 10 – 15 hours each week.

There is also an amazing course at Flipper University which shows beginners how they can earn as much as $2,500 monthly in their first year of item flipping. They also share the strategies you can use to make over $100 per year.

16. Graphic Designing

If you are skilled at logo creation, designing brochures or banners, you have the opportunity to earn money online easily. There are companies such as Fiverr and 99Designs which have made it easy for graphic designers to earn money by working online.

Click here to join 99Designs and start earning money with your design skills!

17. Data Entry

As a college student, you can earn money online from data entry. It involves imputing or updating data on a computer using Google documents, Excel documents, or other programs online that are already preset.

This particular job is a bit tricky because scammers like to use data entry jobs to bait innocent victims online and steal their money. However, you can still make money legitimately working as a data entry specialist. There are jobs you can apply to.

Some of these offers are in the following companies:

• The Smart Crowd
• DoorDash
• Working Solutions
• ClickWorker
• Dion Data
• Amazon Mechanical Turk

18. Social Media Moderator

Working as a moderator on behalf of your client, to monitor each post or upload to the social media platform to decide if the post requires a response. 

The main duties of a moderator include: starting threads, responding to queries and comments, issuing warnings, disciplining unruly members & closing expired threads. As a social media moderator, you need to be active and very firm.

You cannot give any room for indiscipline, else the groups or forums will become disorderly and the client dissatisfied by your work. To avoid chaotic situations, you need to lay down rules and make sure everyone obeys the rules, especially you.

These are some moderation companies:

• Crisp Thinking
• The Social Element
• LiveWorld
• Lithium
• ModSquad

19. Amazon

Amazon is a multi-billion dollar online marketplace that allows more than 2 million sellers to sell items online. In 2019 alone, sellers on Amazon generated $53.76 billion in yearly sales. 

In 2019, third party sales accounted for 50% of Amazon’s yearly sales. 

When working as an Amazon seller, you send bulk products to Amazon who will then handle the shipping to your customers as well as the inventory on your behalf.

Jessica Larrew of The Selling Family has done this for years and makes six figures from this business. There is a FREE video series in 3-parts by her that teaches you how to begin and run your own successful business on Amazon.

20. Cashback Websites

Cashback websites are a little different because they help you save money and not earn money, but there are a few websites where you can make money. Rakuten for example pays you $25 per qualified referral.

People who have never signed up with the site before are qualified referrals. If you have a large social media presence, you can convince them to sign up on Rakuten, enabling them to save money on purchases while you earn $25 for every new referral.

Initially, $25 may seem little, but after 2 to 3 months, the money in your account can grow up to thousands of dollars without you having to put in any work.

Here is a detailed post on how you get cashback on all your online purchases using Rakuten. 

Also, you can start making money from home by referring friends and family to Rakuten using this affiliate link. 

Start Earning Money While You’re Still in College

I hope the ideas on this list have shown you how many online jobs for college students are out there. The majority of the jobs on this list are pretty easy and don’t need any special skills, investment, or experience. And the best part is that they can all be done from the comfort of your home or anywhere. 

I’m sure there’s at least one job on this list that you could start doing today, so what are you waiting for?

What are you waiting for? Try out some of these ideas and begin cashing out TODAY! 

Did you find the perfect online job for you? Share in the comments below.