When you’re a college student, you don’t have a steady source of income. With the rising cost of college tuition, you need some additional income to cover your expenses. Besides the expenses, you need to able to earn enough to pay back some of your debt as well.
Even though most student loans moratorium ends after your college course ends, you don’t want to wait until then because that just means you’ll have to pay higher interest rates. The goal is to clear as much of your student debt as possible while having enough to cover your expenses during those years.
Most jobs require you to be present at a physical location. Working at that fast-food chain, at that gas station, at that grocery store, or even in your college’s departments or library needs you to be present there.
There are two problems with that – they can’t be tailored around your class schedule, and they don’t pay enough for the time you put in, to work there. With the advancement in technology, it is not only possible to work online remotely but also earn more than what you could working at those physical locations.
As a college student, finding an online job could be similar to discovering a goldmine that keeps on giving as long as you dig it. So here are four easy online jobs that you could get while studying full-time or part-time.
[Als0 Read: 6 Important Questions to Ask Before Starting a New Job]
Freelance Writer:
This one just had to be on the top of the list. Everything you read on the internet today has been written by someone else. Companies pay a lot of money to get that content written. Here’s the catch, though – the cost of hiring full-time employees could be higher than the cost of hiring a freelancer.
When you compare this with the fact that there are more than there are 53 million freelancers in the US alone who earn more than most employees in traditional jobs, this becomes a very lucrative job prospect
However, it is not all fairy-tales. You can’t expect to earn a five-figure or a six-figure income every month as a college student. While you don’t require exceptional talent in writing to make it as a freelance writer, you certainly need good grammatical skills, concise and value-added content, and dedication to earn a steady income every month.
Besides, the goal here isn’t to become rich by the end of four years. It is to come out having lived a comfortable life in college and paid off some of your debt.
There are several websites where you can pitch yourself when you’re starting. Upwork and Fiverr are two common places. Apart from that, a lot of private clients want freelancers too. A casual Google search will yield a lot of results
Blogger:
The only reason we’ve included blogger in this list is because of the type of content you’d be dealing with. As a blogger, you’d be producing original content on topics that you choose. The best part is that your source of revenue is not dependent just on the number of views you get on your blog. Once you’ve incorporated AdSense into your blog, the ad revenue comes in no matter how old the article is.
If you incorporate affiliate links on your website, you can earn a commission from sales through your blogs as well. Once again, this revenue comes in, no matter how old your article is.
Of course, for companies to have affiliations with you, you need to build up a reader base, and that can take time. But with some dedication, you can earn a lot of money from writing your blog. I mean, just read what Holly Johnson has done. She now earns more than $200000 a year just from blogging.
Now, earning that six-figure income isn’t easy. But with some dedication, you can earn about $10000 a year. That amount more than covers up the annual expenditure estimates by most ivy league colleges, which means you’ll still have enough to pay back a part of your college debt.
There are several free platforms for you to build a reader base. However, most of them don’t offer AdSense or other forms of conventional revenue. There are also cheap hosting platforms for beginner bloggers
Fiverr Gigs:
Fiverr is a platform that offers individuals with a lot of options. You don’t have to be an expert in a field to earn money. Several jobs don’t require a lot of time investment. You could simultaneously do data entry, transcribing information, content writing, translations, or video-to-text or audio-to-text jobs. Average Fiverr gigs can help you earn anywhere between $5-$900 per gig.
The higher end of those payments depends on your proven record on the website. But for a starter, you’ll have some great options there as well. Five dollars might not seem like much, but most of these jobs don’t take more than a couple of hours of your time.
The only problem here is that Fiverr is a price-differentiated market. That means gigs are awarded based on the price you quote for the task. This can create a spiraling price reduction war. But hey, you can at least earn some money on the side, right?
Online Tutoring:
Teaching has regained its charm thanks to the emergence of online tutoring platforms. As a tutor, you can earn about $14-$20. In some countries, Even if you work only 20 hours a week, you can earn a lot of money. The best part about online tutoring is that you can always tutor what you’ve already learned. What better way to put your subjects to use than to make money by teaching someone else the same?
But if you want to take a break from school, you can always teach some instruments. With increasing access to information, a lot of students are relying on online platforms like YouTube for their instrument lessons. You don’t even have to partner with any website for tutoring. Just start your own blog or YouTube channel and incorporate videos onto that. That can ramp up your views, AdSense offers, and your reputation as a tutor.
But if you can’t make it on your own, several platforms are great when you’re starting out. Places like VIPKid give you as much as $14-$20 an hour while on Wyzant, you can set your own rates.
And before you start thinking that you don’t know enough about any subject, remember that you can always teach English to international students. The demand for ESL tutors is increasing rapidly. If you’re good with English, you can always teach students to earn some side income.
Conclusion:
This is not an exhaustive list of the available jobs. You have so many others like a social media marketer, graphic designer, web developer, or survey taker. The only thing is, those require a certain level of technical skills. The ones mentioned above don’t really need you to have such a high level of expertise in any specific area.
Working these jobs is better than working on-campus or in any brick-and-mortar places. You get to choose your hours and the kind of work you want to do. And if you find something you’re really passionate about, you could always make it a career.
