How Can I Earn Money Online as a Student?
You are a student, at college or university, and you want to earn money online next to your classes. There are many ideas around. The harder part is keeping one going through a whole term.
By the end of this guide, you will be able to recognise four mistakes that can make that harder, and you will know what to do instead of each. You will also leave with one rule for each mistake.
We do guided affiliation. Other ways of doing this exist, and they are not wrong for being different.
Four mistakes that can make earning money online harder for a student
1. Choosing for a quiet week, not for an exam week
What it looks like: you pick an activity in a calm week, when an evening free seems normal.
What it can cost: the first exam week takes the evenings back. An activity that needed them can stop there.
What to do instead: judge an activity on the busiest week of your term, not the calmest. If it fits that week, it is likely to fit the others.
In guided affiliation, posting takes about 15 minutes a day. Whether that fits your exam weeks is yours to check, before you start.
2. Buying something to start
What it looks like: an offer asks you to buy a kit, a course or a certificate before you begin.
What it can cost: what you spend goes in before anything comes back. The US Federal Trade Commission, writing in 2023 about offers of work, describes people who end up buying starter kits, so-called training or certifications that turn out to be useless.
What to do instead: start only with what costs you nothing to begin.
In guided affiliation, there is nothing to buy and nothing to deposit, at any point.
3. Counting on your good weeks
What it looks like: you plan around the weeks when everything goes well.
What it can cost: a term can have fewer of those than it seems. When a bad week comes, the plan has no room for it.
What to do instead: plan for an ordinary week, and decide in advance what you do in a bad one.
In guided affiliation, the aim is to post as much as possible, and seven days a week is the ideal.
Missing a few days is not a drama, though. It is flexible, and not posting for a day or a few days does not close any door. Regularity still matters.
4. Saying yes before checking what an offer asks
What it looks like: an offer sounds simple, and you say yes before asking what it expects of you.
What it can cost: you find out later what was yours to do, at a time when your term has no room left.
What to do instead: put the same questions to every offer before you answer. We set out five of them in starting a side hustle with no experience.
Where you study changes some of the answers
If you study in the Philippines, Kenya or Nigeria, we look at what changes there in how can I make money as a student in the Philippines, in Kenya and in Nigeria. For ideas you can do from home, we ranked five in side hustles for college students you can do from home.
One rule for each mistake
- I choose for my exam weeks, not my quiet ones.
- I buy nothing to start.
- I plan for my ordinary weeks.
- I check what an offer asks before I say yes.