What would it be like to get rich in college by doing stuff you love? Are you tired of working a minimum wage college job? You’re studying to become a brilliant professional – why should you be working for a few dollars an hour?
My friends, you don’t have to. Although making a lot of money in college isn’t easy – it is DEFINITELY possible.
If you have a positive attitude, some creativity, and the willingness to work hard, you may discover that you can earn as much in college as most people do working full time!
Although I am sure that there are many more ways to get rich while at university, this list should help you get started. Oh, and once you get rich in college, I would love for you to get me on a thank-you round-the-world ticket.
Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. This means, if you buy something through this link, I receive a small commission. However, your price doesn’t change at all. I only recommend products, I like and use.
1. Buy Real Estate – For Less Than You Think
Before you brush me off as a complete idiot for thinking, that a college kid can afford to purchase real estate, a friend of mine did exactly this.
He and his brother purchased a foreclosed house in a slightly-questionable neighborhood for $10,000. They then lived in it for a year while investing much of their own time and an additional $10,000 to fix it up.
It was one of the smartest moves, they could have made! The cost of rent for one year would have been close to $10,000. Instead, they spent that rent on a house they are now renting out for $700 a month. They can probably sell the place now for over $40,000! That’s not a bad return on one year of living in slight discomfort.
Of course, this option isn’t for everyone. However, a quick Zillow search will show you, where the cheapest houses are in your area. If you team up with a few friends (and create legal documents) you may find yourself with a real estate empire before you have a degree.
A second way to invest in real estate, which won’t make you quite as rich, but takes a lot less work, is to sign up for Fundrise — a site that allows anyone to invest as little as $500 and earn a steady 8-10% annual return.
I have invested with these guys for just over a year and love them! I would recommend that you review their latest returns to determine if investing with Fundrise is right for you.
Interested in buying real estate? Take these action steps next:
- Watch the video above to get a quick and useful introduction.
- Visit www.zillow.com
- Search for your area.
- Go through the cheapest offers and see, if they sound any interesting to you.
- Visit www.fundrise.com
- Read their FAQ and Refund Policy – You can get a 90 day refund, if you aren’t happy, but you should read the restrictions, before.
- If you like the service, start investing. You can start with $500.
Read more on the topic:
2. Start a Blog To Get Rich In College
Everyone talks about blogging. Although you won’t get rich off of a few casual blog posts, if you can upload one post a day for a year, you may start earning a healthy return. You don’t need be especially lucky or talented to make between $250-$2,500 a month from your site, as long as your consistent and determined.
I would say, that the most important aspect of building a blog is grow an audience, that you can capitalize on later. If you ever start a business, you already have a powerful way to inform a significant number of people, who know and trust your work. Furthermore, if you show a potential employer that you’ve written 100 blog posts on a topic related to your career, it can provide a tremendous advantage during your job hunt.
If you don’t know, if you want to commit to a regular blog, start by writing on HubPages or Medium. These sites are not only great ways to test and improve your writing, they can also provide you multiple paid writing opportunities that you would not get otherwise (opportunities that can make you $50+ an hour).
However, buckling down and starting a real blog will certainly pay off in the long run.
If you’re interested in starting a blog, go check out my 95 Easy Action Steps to Start a Money-Making Blog in 2020!
3. Manage Your Own Team of Frealancers
If you believe, that you already have a significant amount of management prowess, and would like to monetize that, why not become a boss while in college? Create a free account on Upwork , Fiverr, or SEOClerk and hire people to do projects for you. You can post jobs and select the best candidates for your team.
Once you have a solid team of graphic designers, website developers, and social media experts, you can offer your website services to small businesses and freelancers in your area.
The key is to find something that you can have done efficiently, and charge people $10-$20/hr for the work. Then hire people on Upwork for $5-$10/hr.
Many young entrepreneurs are making a lot of money managing social networks, writing content, and running advertising campaigns for small businesses. You can become one of them.
I personally love this idea and will probably try this in the future.
To get an idea of, how this works, and what’s possible with this business model, watch this free Masterclass on HOW TO BUILD A $10K PER MONTH AGENCY (FOR FREELANCERS)
If you consider, checking out Fiverr as a Freelance platform, I would highly appreciate you clicking my link (just click on the picture above). I will get a small commission, if you hire someone on Fiverr (for you, the price remains the same, obviously). This would help, keeping this blog running + profitable. Click here, to head over Fivver and help a sister out! Thank you! 🙂
4. Sell Advertising Space
Everyone is desperate for attention – making advertising a big business. There are a variety of ways that people make money from selling advertising. You can create a website to sell it on, or sell the ads space on other people’s websites. Furthermore, you can hire people to hold signs, pass out flyers, and tweet about the message to their friends.
Some college students have gotten creative and sold advertising on the side of people’s cars, on store floors, or even on a pointless website (milliondollarhomepage.com).
If you can think up creative ways to catch people’s attention, you will certainly be able to monetize those ideas.
Get started by finding products that you can promote on sites like FlexOffers, ShareASale, AdmitAd, and Amazon. Then find creative ways to promote those products and watch the cash roll in.
For further information, go check out this article on The Three Most Effective Ways for Selling Ads on Your Website
The Three Most Effective Ways for Selling Ads on Your Website
5. Create a YouTube Channel
A growing crowd of YouTubers are making videos as a full-time job. From make-up application videos, to cooking and fashion tips, if you create videos that people enjoy, you can earn big bucks from them.
Although Google is very vague about their earnings programs, I have heard that a YouTube video will earn between $2 and $5 per 1000 views. If 100 people watch your video, that isn’t much. However, if you reach 1,000,000 views, you’ve just earned $2000-$5000! Many YouTubers make more than this by promoting brands in their videos.
If you enjoy a particular topic, and believe that you can entertain others, making videos may be right for you.
6. Develop an App
The world is moving more and more to mobile apps. For a while, Candy Crush was making $10 million a day.
Whether you have a concept for a revolutionary new networking app, or simply a fun little game, creating an app can provide you with a lot of money. There have even been high school kids who have sold their app companies for millions of dollars – why can’t you be next?
Developing an app takes some skills and time. However, if you spend 30 minutes a day learning how to program apps, I’m sure it will pay off in the long run.
Or, if you have a great idea, you may be able to pull on other people to help create or pay for the app. Again, Upwork is a great place to hire people. Outsource your project there and it can cost you $3-10 an hour for development.
Check out these 65 Jaw-Tropping App-Usage Statistics by TechJury
7. Invest Wisely
You don’t have to be 30 to start investing.
Rachel Fox started blogging about investing as a 16-year-old actress (made famous from the show, Desperate Housewives). If a television actor can invest at 16, there’s no reason you should be able to start investing right now.
And, as it turns out, there are many ways to invest like a millionaire before you’re rich. Sign up for MotifInvesting or TradeKing to start investing your own cash. Meanwhile, if you want your money to grow without requiring substantial work on your part, consider using a robo-advisor like Betterment.
Although investing is always risky, with a little education, you can be prepared to invest intelligently. Depending on the level of risk (and possibility of loss) that you will take on, you can make a decent, or huge, return on your investment.
I just recently read a story about a guy, who made $20,000 over a 3-month period by focusing on inexpensive stocks – almost doubling his initial investment. Of course, he has a degree in finance and watches the market closely. However, he isn’t doing anything that a college student wouldn’t be able to do.
Here’s an impressive Infographic by U.S. News, showing how much your money might be worth, if you invested it, instead of spending it right now.
As a med student, I saw and spoke to many people in the hospital, who regretted that they worried too much about the future and forgot to enjoy the present (both time- and money-wise). This is, why I’d never suggest to you to live too frugally today and save everything for a future that may never come. However, don’t buy shit you don’t need or want, just to impress others. Do and buy, what makes you happy and save the rest for later. 🙂
8. Launch a Kickstarter or IndieGoGo Campaign
If you have a great idea for a business or a product, but don’t want to wait until your rich to get this business started, consider launching an IndieGoGo campaign.
You can make anywhere from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of dollars through a successful campaign. Whether you want to create a film, invent a product, or start a fashion label, Kickstarter is a great way to test the market and make money in the process.
To run a successful fund-raising campaign, the most important thing you need is a great idea. This is, why I highly recommend the book “Become an Idea Machine” by Claudia Altucher*. It contains 365 prompts for idea-lists, that you can use everyday to generate thousands of ideas. Most ideas will probably suck, but once you generated 1000, 2000 or 3000 ideas, there has to be at least one, that doesn’t suck completely, right?
9. Sell Online To Get Rich In College
I almost didn’t put this one on the list, because it can take a lot of work for a minimal return. However, there are some people making a tremendous amount of money from buying and selling on Ebay, AliExpress, Amazon, Etsy, and other sites. If you have a creative idea or know how to find inexpensive products, consider starting an online store.
One method that’s becoming popular is to dropship – something you can start for free! Here’s how:
- Find products on AliExpress to sell.
- Sign up for a free trial of Shopify and create a store based around those products.
- Sign up for a free trial of Oberlo (a Shopify plugin that allows you to easily import products from AliExpress).
- Add your profit margin and promote your store.
- When someone makes a purchase from your store, you simply contact the supplier to have them ship the order!
- Get Rich In College!
The beauty of this method above is that you can start for free. If the store takes off during the trial period, keep it going. If it doesn’t, then shut it down and try something else.
Because you only buy inventory once it’s already sold, you have absolutely zero start-up costs!
So there you have it – 9 ways to make money in college. Now get out there and start making some serious money while in college.
Bonus: Enter sweepstakes and giveaways
There are hundreds of giveaways that you can enter and win anywhere from a few dollars to well over a million. These giveaways, along with college scholarships, can make any college experience more affordable (and enjoyable).
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Interested in more ways to make money?
If you’re ready to make a few more bucks in your free time, don’t miss out on this list of 101 Legit Ways to make Money Online in 2020 In Your Spare Time. Among these two lists, you should be able to make anywhere from $100-5,000 over the weekend!
Are there any ideas I missed? I would love for you to share your strategies for making a LOT (or a little bit) of money while in college.
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