College is hard. And it’s more complicated when you have no money in your pocket. Unlike before, working from home is a norm; the best part is that everyone can do it from home. While it’s usual for college students to work part-time, that trend is changing fast. High-paying side hustles are popping up every year. While some side gigs stay relevant for years to come, some vanish after only a few months.
This post focuses more on college students who want to explore money-making opportunities or start a small business from their dorm. These are the 10 best high-paying side hustles best suited for college students.
(1) Freelancing
Freelancing is the best money-making option for college students. Starting a freelancing career is free; you can work whenever you have time and feel like it. The best part is that if you start early, you can make it big as a freelancer.
One question might come to your mind: what niche should I choose? As you might have already guessed, you can only be a good freelancer if you are good at something. So, the best freelancing topic would be something that you’re good at. If you’re a Graphic Design student, you can start a career as a freelance Graphic Designer.
In my opinion, Fiverr and Upwork are the two best platforms to start your freelancing career. Fiverr is the best, and it’s relatively easy to get good gigs.
(2) Virtual Assistant (VA)
VAs are in great demand today, especially after the 2020 world events. Businesses hire Virtual Assistants to ease the burden of rudimentary jobs. VAs are also employed by prominent media personalities and influencers. For example, big YouTuber Ali Abdaal hires a virtual assistant to handle his ever-flowing emails and other rudimentary tasks.
Businesses don’t mind paying someone to handle inefficient cash-generating tasks, but they are important in other ways.
As a Virtual Assistant, you get the opportunity to learn a lot and see how a business usually performs. If you’re worried about the pay, it can range between a few hundred to several thousand Dollars. Also, nowadays, it has become far easier than before to get a VA job. There are websites like Fiverr where you can register as a VA and get hired.
(3) Data Entry
Data Entry is one side hustle that has existed in the industry for decades. The possibilities are limitless. I remember my first data entry side job was to type a 4000-word hard copy document in Microsoft Word. It was challenging, and the pay was awful, but that side gig increased my typing speed drastically.
Data Entry is an insanely big industry. As big as the Freelancing industry. In fact, freelancing and data entry are closely connected.
You might not love typing a 4000-word document, but you can convert words to audio files. You can arrange a data set in Microsoft Excel, which is also data entry. So, Data Entry simply means “entering information into a computer.” So, anything that comes under this umbrella is a Data Entry job.
As a college student, the best data entry job can be typing and arranging documents into Microsoft Excel.
(4) Social Media Influencer
How many of you have thought of starting a vlogging YouTube channel? If yes, then you’re not alone. People love watching vlogs because they show a person’s life differently. Vlogs are usually not edited a lot, unlike professionally-made videos. Which is another reason why people love watching them.
College students go through a lot of events in their life. Doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad. If you have a mobile phone with a good enough camera, you can start a vlogging YouTube channel. Keep the videos as simple as possible, and people will love them.
Don’t get disheartened if your videos don’t get many views initially. If you keep posting good and unique content, it’ll pick up pace in the future.
(5) Social Media Manager
If, in 2010, you told me that Social Media Management would soon become a well-paid hustle, then I wouldn’t have believed you. Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to promote your business without social media. This is the reason practically every business has a social media account. These multi-billion dollar companies now have social media accounts, but they find it hard to manage them themselves.
That’s where SMMs come in. As an SMM, your job will be to manage a business’s social media account. In short, you’ll be responsible for growing and managing the business online through social media.
As a college student, you can quickly become an SMM if you balance technical ideas and marketing well. Top SMMs make substantial money. Good enough for them to consider it a full-time job. So, suppose you’re interested in a high-paying side hustle and a full-time job. In that case, you can try a career as a Social Media Manager.
(6) Personal Tutor
Personal tutoring is one of the best ways to make extra cash with little effort. Children do need help regarding various topics they don’t understand at school. As a personal tutor, your primary task will be to support the student in grasping what they couldn’t at school.
Personal tutors are always in great demand, no matter which country you live in. What’s surprising is that most personal tutors have no limit to how much they can make. Especially if they are really good at it.
Better yet, personal tutors make more with every passing day. Why? They gather a good name for themselves, which helps them get more potential students.
(7) Blogging
I cannot miss blogging when it’s about high-paying side hustle. A few years ago, blogging was treated as just a hobby. Today, after the success of several bloggers, it has become a full-time business for many. And the sole reason is that it’s relatively easier than other side gigs. The initial investment is pretty low, but the returns are insane. It gets even more ridiculous when you sell a blog.
I can assure you one thing about blogging! If you keep blogging diligently and hit the sweet spot, you’ll make more money than ever imagined. Stay away from people who say that blogging has no future! They are either misleading you or couldn’t make it into the industry.
Yes, those golden days of receiving millions of visits within a month are gone, but that doesn’t mean nobody is achieving this milestone. I have made money within a month of blogging and sold it for 100x what I invested. So, if I can do it…you can too.
(8) Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing and Blogging are closely connected. How, you ask? See, most bloggers have a handful of ways to make money:
(1) Ads
(2) Affiliate Marketing
(3) SponsorshipsÂ
(4) Course Selling
Of course, there are many other ways to make money from a blog, but these 4 are the primary ones. Most blogs make money only from ads. The following most preferred way is affiliate marketing. Well-known blogs make serious cash from affiliates alone. I have seen tech blogs making 6-figures a month only from affiliates, let alone ad income.
The beauty of affiliate income is that you don’t need a blog. You can connect affiliate links to your social media account, which will also work.
(9) Online Fitness Instructor
Are you into fitness? If yes, then you can become an Online Fitness Instructor. Strange, but some people opt for online fitness rather than in-person training. As an online fitness instructor, you have two ways of making money: (1) Private coaching classes and (2) Course selling.
Private coaching is the one that brings in the real cash. And people don’t mind paying a little extra if you are good at it. Private tutors charge 4-figures for 2 hours of their time, and people happily pay for it.
On the other hand, you can also sell your course online. Making money from selling courses is not a new thing, though, and in this, too, there’s no limit to how much you can earn.
(10) Dropshipping
Finally, Dropshipping is a goldmine. If you find a goldmine, your life is going to change immediately. The only issue is that too many miners are trying to find gold. A few years ago, Dropshipping was as hot as ChatGPT is today. Dropshipping quickly rose to popularity because of the insane profit margins. But times have changed.
No, profits are the same as before, but Dropshipping has become sophisticated. Here’s a small secret about Dropshipping success: Find trending products. That’s pretty much it. If you know how to start and manage a Dropshipping store, the only work you have to do after it is finding trending products.
Once you do, you can sell them on social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok. Later, if you think it’s time to move to something else, you can sell the business/website at a high margin.