How To Make Money In College: Tips And Ideas

College is a time for learning, exploration and preparing for your career. Often, you’re not making much cash, at least not relative to your future career. At the same time, you want to have the resources to pay for your expenses and maybe have some pizza money left. Here are our best tips and ideas on how to make money in college.

How Do You Get Paid In College?

The way to make money in college is to go in having a strategy, knowing what you want to accomplish and setting appropriate expectations for yourself. Here are some things to think about before we get into what jobs might be available.

We would love to give you the one job that’s going to guarantee you make a $100,000 salary from your dorm while working 2 hours per day between your classes. While not impossible to make that money, even at a young age, those jobs are rare and require a lot of work.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median annual wage for those age 16 – 19 in Q2 2024 was $32,552. Moving into the 20 – 24 range, the median is $39,104. While these groups have some room at either end, they do correspond with the timing of undergraduate studies for most students and may anchor salary expectations.

Instead of worrying about the best job, think about the best job for you personally. When it comes to that, there are several factors you should think about.

Consider Your Talents

The first thing you should do is make a list of what you’re good at or could possibly do. That should narrow down your job search. I’m in a wheelchair, so the typical restaurant jobs were out, but I could work in the writing center or student newspaper. I'm good at consumer math, but not qualified to be a teaching assistant in a calculus class for extra cash.

Knowing your aptitudes and having some idea of your current skill level will help you to pick out a good fit.

Schedule Smartly

One of my favorite things about college was the ability to make my own schedule. You may still not have a ton of time, but the time you do have may be more flexible. If you’re only going to class 2 or 3 days a week, you may be able to take on more hours at work for a full-time or part-time job, depending on your homework load.

Sometimes acceptance of financial aid or other assistance may be conditional upon having a work-study job on campus. The good news is these are the types of jobs where they’ll really work to accommodate your class schedule.

Goals

One thing to ask yourself fairly early on is what your goals are in your job search. If you want to make the most money possible or find something part-time that you can fit in between classes for extra cash, that’s a different conversation than if you’re looking for something that helps you prepare for your career. Understand what you want out of the job.

Career Exploration

Some people are lifelong learners, but for most, the goal of college is to get the degree that allows you to get the job and career that you desire. With that in mind, thinking about how to set yourself up for your future career is important.

I encourage you to get involved with clubs and jobs that align with what you think you want to do when you graduate as soon as possible for a couple of reasons. First, class is one thing, but there’s no substitute for real-world experience. I learned more that I still apply today while working on the student newspaper than I did in any lecture.

It also might give you an idea of what you don’t want to do. If you need to make a change, better to know early on while you’re still doing prerequisites. The first internship I had provided a fantastic learning opportunity, but I figured out it wouldn’t present me the best long-term opportunities. This guided me in future applications.

If you do find an internship or entry-level job in your chosen field and excel at it, sometimes that’s a stepping stone to future permanent positions. I started as an intern before being hired on, and that story is not an uncommon one. Turn heads, and it might turn into something.

Best Jobs For College Students

We’ve broken these down into on-campus and off-campus opportunities. The listed wages are from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics report from May 2023, as reported by the BLS.

On-Campus

These are jobs you can either do when employed through the school or as a result of your belonging in the campus community.

Tutor

Especially if you go to a 4-year university, there are a lot of general education requirements that have to be met based on schools wanting you to have a well-rounded plan of study.

Not everyone is good at every subject though, so it’s the kind of environment in which you can flourish by tutoring your fellow students in what you’re good at and bring in some cash in the process.

The average wage for a college tutor was just over $21 an hour. The report doesn’t break things out by on-campus and private tutors, so it should be noted that you might make more money as a private tutor and less as a campus tutor.

Campus Dining

Campus dining involves help with the preparation or serving of food as people go through the line. The average wage is $16.05 an hour.

Library Assistant

Do you have an affinity for the Dewey decimal system or really know your way around directories of academic research? Working in the library might be for you. In addition to these types of jobs, college libraries often serve as the technology help desk for students trying to navigate new software relevant to their projects and future careers.

The average wage is $16.36 per hour for library assistants and $18.90 for technicians.

Disability Support Services

Colleges will call this different things, but accommodations are provided to students with diagnosed disabilities or conditions that might require them to have certain supports to perform to the best of their ability in the classroom.

When those teaching didn’t want their lectures recorded, I would work with a notetaker that the school would pay when I was in class. This can be ideal because it’s like getting paid to show up to class and pay attention. Just be aware that it helps to have decent handwriting.

I would also work with scribes to take tests. There were readers for those who dealt with vision impairments or learning disabilities like dyslexia. Still other students can make money as proctors monitoring testing environments when students need extra time.

Student Leadership Roles

If you’re elected or appointed to a role within the student assembly or congress at your school, some of the roles are paid to compensate for your time. This can be a good fit if there are things you’re passionate about within the campus community that you would like to get involved in, grow or change to provide a better experience for other students.

Audio-Visual (AV) Tech

Colleges are places where there are constant activities and events being held. Schools or student organizations will bring in speakers from all over to enrich the campus experience. Not everyone is going to be familiar with the equipment the school has available. Being able to wrangle cables and get the projector to work is a skill.

These positions pay an average of $25.84 an hour at academic institutions, according to the data.

Resident Advisors (RA)

If you have good organization, peer mediation and activity planning skills, colleges and universities are often looking for RAs to lead sections of dorms to make sure that things don’t get too wild and crazy for the young people under their charge.

Although the average hourly wage is $19.67 per hour, you may receive consideration in the form of free room and board.

Teaching Assistants

Working as a teaching assistant pays better than any of the other on-campus options we’ve talked about so far, but it is a lot of work. As a TA, you lead class discussions, help prepare exams, and help create lessons.

This pay can be highly variable because you will end up negotiating with the teacher on an individual level when they approach you. But the average according to the BLS is $40,200.

Off-Campus

Now that we’ve covered the campus jobs, let’s talk about things you can do away from campus or even in your dorm.

Restaurants And Bartending

If you’re personable and don’t mind working in a fast-paced lunch or dinner rush, restaurant or bartending jobs could be the ticket for you. Wages are somewhat variable across the country because restaurant rules for minimum wage are different from state to state, and you work for tips a lot. But there can be good money in this.

Babysitting

Some of these jobs go to high schoolers, but there are plenty of cases where parents might want someone more mature, particularly if the children are on the younger side or have special needs. If you’re imaginative, can help kids with their homework and keep them in line, your services might be in demand.

Online Gigs

We’re in an online economy now more than ever. You don’t have to be anywhere to pick up tasks and do a job. These can require a specialized skill set that can do graphic design or writing or it could be something like data entry, labeling and validation. You can look into services like Fiverr, Upwork and Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Rideshare And Delivery Drivers

If you have a driver’s license with a clean driving record, consider applying for rideshare and delivery services like Uber and Lyft. Delivery is mostly about route and time management. With rideshare apps, it can sometimes help to be more of a conversationalist. Some people are chatty and some people aren’t.

Internships

I’m not going to go too crazy talking about this because we covered a lot on this above when discussing clear goals, but it’s worth mentioning here because while these will be the most work, they have the bonus that they tend to pay pretty well relative to some of the other options we’ve discussed and it gives you the opportunity to look at your options careerwise.

The other thing to consider here is that many programs will require an internship as a condition of your graduation. So at least for the first one, you may be both getting a paid internship and paying for the credit hours.

The Bottom Line

When considering making money in college, be aware of what your overall goals are. The jobs that make you the most money in the short term may not be the same ones that line up with your class schedule or help you get experience in your chosen field of study. That’s okay, but just know that you can’t always have both. But you should be able to find something that suits your skill set.

Once you find that job, you want to be able to budget, saving and spending that money wisely. But that doesn’t need to be work. Rocket Money^SM can help you get a handle on your budget and expenses at a glance without having to do another spreadsheet.