17 Online Jobs for Students to Make an Extra $500 a Month in College

During my time in college, there weren’t many online jobs for students available.

You could sell on eBay, which I did, or post on forums for cash, and that was about it. People had blogs, but they weren’t monetized, and everything else was non-existent due to slow internet connections and not as many people being online.

I still remember Sunday mornings after overspending on Saturday night while in college. If I was broke on Saturday, I was even more broke on Sunday, and I needed a job to fill the gaps.

Back in the day, we had only a few options to earn money as college students without a job – manual labor, pizza delivery, office cleaning, and that was pretty much it. Now, you have dozens of online jobs available to easily make an extra $500 a month.

Our Favorite Side Hustles

Download these apps to make extra cash in your spare time. Get paid to complete surveys or take photos around your city.

AI Content Editor

Similar to freelance writing, but here you use tools to write articles faster. This is quite popular in the news space where timing is everything.

Mostly, these sites use special tools made with the ChatGPT API, but the content that the tool churns out still needs a human touch.

That’s where you come in. You’ll have to check the facts, tweak and edit the content, and sometimes add new info that isn’t already online.

The job usually pays about $15 an hour.

Tutoring

If you’re looking for a flexible way to make some extra cash and you’re good at a particular subject, then online tutoring could be just the thing for you.

You don’t necessarily need a teaching degree but you should be pretty confident in the subject you want to teach – whether that’s math, science, English, or even something like coding or a foreign language.

Many online tutoring sites just require you to be enrolled in or have graduated from a college. Some might ask you to take a test in your subject area but if you’re already studying the subject in college, you’re halfway there!

You can often set your hours and work as much or as little as you want.

There are loads of websites out there to find tutoring jobs. Chegg Tutors, Tutor.com, and VIPKid are pretty popular. They handle the matchmaking part – connecting you with students who need help in your area of expertise.

Depending on the subject and your experience, you could earn anywhere from $15 to $25 per hour or more.

Virtual Assistant

Being a virtual assistant is a job a jack-of-all-trades, but online. You’ll be doing a variety of tasks for businesses or individuals, all from your computer.

This can include managing emails, scheduling appointments, handling social media, or even doing some data entry.

You can often work from anywhere and choose the hours that fit your schedule and the tasks can be really varied, so it’s unlikely you’ll get bored.

You don’t need a specific degree to be a virtual assistant, but being organized, good at managing your time, and having strong communication skills are super important.

You can find virtual assistant jobs on remote work websites like Upwork, Remote.co, and Virtual Assistant Jobs.

The pay can vary, but it often ranges from $10 to $20 per hour, depending on the complexity of the tasks and your experience.

Social Media Manager

You’ll be in charge of creating, posting, and managing content across various social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Your day-to-day tasks might include planning social media campaigns, writing posts, designing graphics, responding to comments and messages, and analyzing the performance of your posts to see what’s working and what’s not.

Creativity is a big part of this job, as well as being up-to-date with the latest social media trends and tools.

You can find Social Media Manager positions on job sites like LinkedIn, Indeed, Fiverr and Upwork. The pay varies but typically ranges from $15 to $40 per hour.

Data Entry

This could involve typing in customer information, updating records, or transferring data from one format to another.

This is a beginner, entry-level job that anyone can do. It doesn’t pay well and it can be boring as hell too, but it’s flexible, so I’d give it a shot.

To find data entry jobs you should check out FlexJobs, Upwork, and Indeed. The pay for data entry jobs is typically between $10 and $15 per hour.

Online Surveys

Surveys are super easy to make some beer money in your spare time. Sure, you’ll make some pocket change, maybe $50 a month, but you can do them anytime and anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection.

If you’re interested, I recommend starting with Survey Junkie, Swagbucks, and Branded Surveys.

These survey apps are all legitimate ways to make money online and have been in the industry for a long time. Each survey typically takes a few minutes to about half an hour to complete.

The payment for each survey varies. It might be a few cents to a couple of dollars, depending on the length and complexity of the survey. Generally, you accumulate points or credits, which you can then redeem for cash, gift cards, or other rewards.

Flipping

As I said, I used to sell on eBay as a college student, and I was quite successful. I used to sell Disney VHS tapes, comic books, and some collectibles.

Back then, it was just one of the few ways available to make money online. Fast forward 20 years, and this is still one of the most popular jobs, and it will continue to be in the future as well.

Flipping—buying items at a low price and selling them for a higher price—is as old as humanity itself. Even in ancient Rome, people used to look for things that were undervalued, buy them, and then sell them at a profit. This can be done with a wide range of lightweight items such as books, stamp collections, and even broken tablets.

The amount of money you can make flipping depends on the items you choose and how much effort you put into it. Some people do it as a hobby and make a bit of extra cash, while others turn it into a full-time business.

Transcriptionist

It’s a job where you might transcribe anything from a business meeting to a podcast.

You don’t need a special degree for this but, you do need to be spot-on with your listening and typing skills. You’ll be handling different accents and sometimes not-so-great audio quality, so paying attention to detail is super important.

You can find transcription jobs on sites like Rev or TranscribeMe. They usually ask you to take a test first, to show you’ve got the skills. As for the pay, it’s typically between $15 and $25 per hour.

Write Reviews

My roommate used to do this. They had a whole team of people creating content on forums, writing positive reviews about almost anything under the sun.

A new club is opening in our city—they will create dozens of threads discussing that new place in town and how good it is. Some companies want to promote a new product, so they will hire them as part of guerrilla marketing so people can see other people have already tried that new product, and that’s good.

They were even hired by the tourist board to promote some destinations, festivals, and the most surprising part to me was reputation management. I was aware that people running in elections have teams for this, but I could not imagine that famous pop stars, concert agencies, and movie studios hired them to promote a new album, movie, etc.

Nowadays, 20 years later, this is still common. Whenever you read some positive review on Amazon, Reddit, Google, question it twice. A good chunk of them are fake. Yes, I said it. They are written by real people, but some of them received an incentive to write it. People tend to write bad reviews but not as positive as they got what they expected, and they do not feel they should brag about it online.

You can find these jobs on Fiverr and different Facebook groups dedicated to Amazon sellers. You’ll get around $3 per comment.

Website Testing

Companies need people to test their sites to make sure they’re easy to use and free from problems. As a website tester, you’d be visiting websites, completing a set of tasks, and then sharing your thoughts about the experience.

You just need to be able to use the internet and explain your thoughts clearly. You’ll be looking at things like how easy it is to navigate the site, if there are any glitches, and how the overall user experience is.

You can find website testing jobs on sites like UserTesting, TryMyUI, and Userlytics. These sites usually have a quick signup process, and once you’re in, you’ll start getting opportunities to test websites.

The pay for website testing can vary, but it’s typically around $10 to $15 for each test you complete. Each test usually takes about 15-20 minutes, so it’s not a huge time commitment.

Graphic design

This industry has been quite shaken recently with the emergence of Midjourney and Dall-e, and the volume of work has drastically decreased, but that won’t last long. I personally used those AI tools, and the images are indeed good, but they lack personality.

They’re all the same, as if they were designed by the same designer, and every company that cares about itself wants to have something that will set them apart from the crowd.

If you have a creative streak and know your way around design software like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, you still can make money as a freelance graphic designer. This could involve designing everything from logos and brochures to social media graphics and website layouts.

One of the best parts about being a freelance graphic designer is the variety. You could be working on a new and different project each day. It’s also a field where you can really let your creativity shine.

To start, you don’t necessarily need a formal degree in graphic design, but having a good portfolio would not hurt. You can build your portfolio by doing some initial projects for friends, family, or local businesses.

You can find graphic design gigs on websites like Fiverr, 99designs, and Upwork. Generally, as a beginner, you might charge anywhere from $25 to $50 per hour.

Stock Photography

To get started, you don’t need to be a professional photographer, but having a good quality camera and understanding basic photography principles will help. Once you’ve got a collection of great photos, you can upload them to stock photography websites like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, and iStockPhoto.

These websites have users looking for images for their projects, and when someone buys your photo, you get paid. The payment is usually a percentage of the sale price, and while it might start off small, it can add up as you get more photos out there and start making regular sales.

Earnings per photo sale can range from a few cents to over $100.

Sell Videos

Just like the above, but in this case, videos. Different TV shows around the world lack new, interesting video content. It’s expensive to produce, and they can’t just go and take videos from YouTube or TikTok. They need licensed videos.

I worked with a London-based video licensing agency, Newsflare, and I make something like $100 a month from my videos. You don’t have to create your own videos; you can ask your friends to give you their interesting videos of some bad weather, or funny cats, and you’ll send them for a cut.

Selling Printables on Etsy

Create digital designs like planners, art prints, or party invitations, and then sell them for people to print at home. Once you’ve got some designs ready, you set up an Etsy account, create your shop, and start selling.

You make the design once, list it on your Etsy shop, and people can buy and download it as many times as they like. After you’ve set it up, it can earn money without much extra work from you.

YouTube

Do I have to explain this one?

It is not as easy to grow a YouTube channel as it was a couple of years ago, but on the other hand, more people are watching YouTube videos than there were a few years ago.

Also, nowadays, you can upload your videos to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and create several income streams.

Blog

During my college years, people had personal blogs on Blogger, LiveJournal, and several other platforms, but they didn’t make a dime blogging. Now, it’s not the case.

You can make money with your blog, so why don’t you start one? If just 20 years ago people had blogs just for fun as a hobby, why can’t you start one and make some extra cash on the side? In a couple of years of hard work, you could turn it into a six-figure business.

Video Editing

Learn working with editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, or even free tools like iMovie or DaVinci Resolve and you won’t regret it. As a starting point, you could earn anywhere from $15 to $50 per hour or more.

You can find video editing gigs on websites like Fiverr, and Upwork, or by reaching out to content creators and businesses directly. Sometimes, you might even find work through word-of-mouth or local networks.