In the last few years, people have become very interested in “passive income.” Investing in things other than stocks and bonds is a great way to make money and build financial security. But did you know that you can start making money without doing anything?
You can start looking for ways to make money before you have money. You only need a little money to start earning passive income, which is excellent news for students in college.
Here are the 16 passive ways for students to make money
Table of Contents
1. Renting out a cottage, room, or garage
Renting out space in your home is one of the easiest ways to make money from a rental property. As a student, you don’t have a spare room, space, or property to rent. If so, start right away with this idea for passive income! You could also start by renting your room through the air BnB website. If you are out of town for a few days, you can rent out your home and make money from it.
Opportunity: Renting out unused space in your home is a great way to make passive income because you can start getting money immediately.
Risk: Losing or damaging your space or property is the most significant risk with this opportunity.
2. Buying property to rent out
You can also make more money by investing in new properties and hiring a management company to monitor the property, deal with tenants, and collect rent. You can get rental income by buying an apartment or single-family home and renting it out if you have enough money or can get a loan. But not all college students may be able to do this.
Opportunity: Investing in real estate is one of the best ways to make money passively, even though there is no quick way. You can also make money in different ways through this.
Risk: Investing in real estate comes with considerable financial trouble. From getting a personal loan to getting a property. And there is risk in buying and selling property.
3. Investing in real estate through apps or crowdfunded real estate
A new way to invest in real estate is through crowdfunded real estate properties. And college students would love it! With this method, a team of experienced investors chooses the property, and you decide how much to invest. This way, you don’t have to work to find a property, get an assessment, or deal with tenants or property maintenance. The real estate platform will charge you a management fee once a year.
You can make money without doing much work by investing in real estate.
By taking part in crowdfunding, there is a financial risk.
4. Rent out your car
Someone is always looking to rent a car, whether you have a reliable sedan, a fast sports car, or a beat-up van. You can let Uber or Lyft drivers who need a car use your vehicle. People who need help moving furniture or heavy packages can also rent your van.
Opportunity: You can make money from something you already own.
Risk: Your property could be damaged or lost. Because it is also an asset that loses value over time, wear and tear is another risk.
5. Put ads on your car
Putting ads on your car is an excellent way to make money while you drive around and do your everyday things. All you have to do is contact a specialty advertising agency in your area. They will be able to put you in touch with the right advertisers. They will place a magnetic or vinyl decal on your car, and you can start making money. Agencies will pay either by the trip or by the mile, and they may offer other perks like a gas card or a gas allowance.
Opportunity: You can make passive income by driving around and doing ordinary things.
Risk: putting more miles on your car could make it hard to sell in the future.
6. Make T-shirts and sweatshirts
People wear T-shirts and sweatshirts a lot, especially on campus. People are always looking for high-quality and unique clothing, so you can start selling online, from your dorm or even near campus. Even if you only have a few T-shirts, you could start making more money from them.
Start by making designs, printing a few, and then selling them. Then you can find out what kinds of designs your target market likes. Then, use apps like Shopify, Facebook, and Instagram Marketplace to set up an online store and sell your goods.
Opportunity: You can make money and sell directly to other teens or college students using your creativity.
Risk: To start printing T-shirts, you must put up some money.
7. Open a store that prints on demand
A print-on-demand store is an excellent way to make money with little work. Instead of trying to sell your stock, you sell per order. You could print things like T-shirts, posters, backpacks, books, mugs, etc., but like drop shipping, you would only do this after selling the item in your store. Starting print-on-demand services is a great way to make money from your creativity without storing things that won’t sell.
To get started, you only need to print a few things you want to sell, set up an online store, and start taking orders. Once you have customers’ demands, you can start printing and sending them out.
RedBubble, Printful, Printify, SPOD and Zazzle are some best print-on-demand sites we can list.
Opportunity: You can make money using your design skills, but there is little risk.
Risk: There is a bit of financial risk with a print-on-demand store because you wait for orders before you place an order.
8. Online stock photo sales
As a service-based business, photography usually takes more of your time. It’s more like a side job, but selling stock photos online can be a way to make money while you sleep.
Stock photo sites like Pexels, Shutterstock, and others will pay for high-quality photos and videos. Start by taking more random, high-quality images of things and places and uploading them to stock photo sites. Once you’ve uploaded the pictures, the sites will do all the work to market and sell them. Your photos will start to bring in money on their own.
Opportunity: Selling stock photos online is a simple way to make money over time because you only get paid when your photos are sold online.
Risk: You would have to use your camera equipment, but a cell phone with a good camera can work just as well.
9. Making a book
Writing a book, whether an e-book or a paperback, is a great way to use your writing skills and hobby to make money while you sleep. Your book could be helpful and give good information to the people who read it. Even though building a fan base and getting support takes time, this is where a publishing company could help you.
Self-publishing is a lot cheaper, but it will take a lot more time on your part. You must write, edit, make a cover, and publish on a site like Amazon. Making a book might not bring success or money immediately, but if you market it well, it could over time.
Opportunity: Making a book is a great way to make money, whether by selling copies of your books or getting royalties in the coming years.
Risk: You have to spend both time and money on this. You will have to spend time writing the book and money to print hard copies or put the book online.
10. Put money into a business
Becoming a silent partner might be easier than you think. Small businesses like food trucks and local shops always seek private investors. This is your chance to put money into someone else’s business in exchange for a return you can work out with them. You can also invest in a business or bond with as little as $10 for bonds or $100 for shares using tools like Mainvest and Worthy.
As a college student, you should invest in the businesses of some of your friends or peers, especially if you think they will do well. But many more apps make it easy for you, even as a student, to start earning passive income from investing.
Opportunity: You can make money by putting money into small businesses without having to work hard on them.
Risk: There is a chance that the business won’t work, and you could lose all the money you put into it.
11. Buy stocks and bonds.
One of the oldest ways to get rich is to buy and sell stocks. You get a share of the company’s profits when you purchase dividend-paying stocks. Dividends are paid for each share of stock, so the more shares you own, the more money you get. But buying supplies and making investments is risky and hard to get into, especially for students.
With an automated investing technology called a “robot advisor,” you can invest in the stock market without doing anything. Betterment is a type of robot advisor that makes it easy to invest in your future.
Opportunity: You can get a passive income for years by buying stocks or shares or using automated investing technology.
Risk: There is a big chance that your investment will lose a lot of money.
12. Digital money
You can make a passive income of between 5% and 10% by investing in several cryptocurrencies or “staking crypto.” This is excellent news for college students because you only need a little money to get into crypto.
Staking cryptocurrency is like getting interested in your savings, but the returns are much higher. Before you start using cryptocurrencies, you should learn as much as you can about them and what they mean. Cryptocurrency exchanges like Kraken and Coinbase are great places to buy and keep an eye on crypto. You can only make suitable crypto investments if you know enough about them. Crypto has its own risks but can give you a good passive income.
Opportunity: It’s not like buying stocks and bonds; you can make money with digital currency.
Risk: Buying crypto requires putting money into a market that is hard to predict. You could lose the money you used to buy cryptocurrency.
13. Vending machines
Putting a vending machine in a college, hospital, or other safe public place is a great way to make money by selling snacks and drinks without doing much work. You can buy a vending machine on Craigslist, eBay, and BizBuySell. A vending machine is easy to start up and keep running, and having more than one on campus or in your college dorm is a great way to make more money from this business.
Opportunity: Vending machines on campus and in schools are an excellent way to make money.
Risk: You would have to buy or rent a vending machine, which is risky. Damage to your property is another risk.
14. Using social media for affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing lets website owners, bloggers, and people with many followers on social media promote the goods and services of other businesses on their sites. Affiliate partners like Amazon, eBay, Awin, and ShareASale are easy to get because you can sign up for them on their websites.
TikTok and Instagram have become trendy places for people who want to build a fan base and sell things. You’ll get a commission when a buyer uses your link or discount code to buy a product from one of your affiliate partners or sponsors. You can start earning as a college student if you grow your social media, website, or blog.
Chance: There are many chances to make money with social media or a blog. Based on what you like to do, you can make money.
Risk: The most significant risk is that you won’t get paid for your work or be scammed.
15. Make recordings of books
Royalties from recordings they have made are how audiobook narrators make money. You could be one of these if you learn to record audiobooks. Once you know how to record, edit, and narrate audio, you can start auditioning to become a paid audiobook narrator. It’s a whole industry, and it’s not easy to get into since some people do it full-time, but you can also use it to make money while you sleep.
Opportunity: Getting started with this opportunity can help you make money without doing anything.
Risk: You may have to spend money and time on something that does not pay off.
16. Making music
If you are good at making music or performing live and are passionate about it, you could license your music to make money while you sleep. People or businesses that want to use your music in a project must pay you when you approve it. They pay you to use your song or cover in commercials, corporate videos, movie trailers, weddings, movie soundtracks, and YouTube videos.
This would be a great way to make money, even if you recorded the song years ago. If you are no longer making money by performing live, this is a way to make money from your skills still. License fees can be expensive for students, but you can pay for them or use a music licensing company.
Opportunity: Getting started with this opportunity can help you earn passive income through royalties for a long time afterward.
Risk: You may have to spend money and time on something that does not pay off.
Tips To Make Passive Income As a College Student
One thing about passive income is that you can only get rich or make money if you give something of value in return. You’ll make money over time without having to trade your time or money for it.
To start making passive income, you need to figure out how much money, time, and effort you will put in initially. You might have to spend more at first to get the most in the long run. Here are some additional tips for getting started with a Passive Income:
Tip 1: Decide how much money you need right away.
With more significant projects, like buying a property, you’ll need to put down more money upfront. This is true for all the investments we’ve discussed so far. So, you need to figure out where to get the money or how to pay for your passive income project before you can start it, whether you use your savings or borrow the money.
The money you put upfront is how much you stand to lose, so consider this carefully before committing. Using a passive income idea depends on how much money you can set up front.
Tip 2: Figure out how much time you need to spend.
Time is another thing we can’t get back. With some of the passive income ideas listed above, you should learn about the opportunity. For instance, you are recording audiobooks, using cryptocurrency, writing a book, etc. It would be best if you first learned about it.
Your time should be worth it; a passive income shouldn’t keep you from studying or working at other jobs. If you already need more time in the day, try something like high-yield CDs that let you make money without wasting time.
Tip 3: Figure out how long until you start making money without doing anything.
Even if you invest money, time, and effort up front, you may still need to start making passive income immediately. With any of these ideas, you should be able to start making money over time. For example, if you buy a high-yield CD, you will get your interest at the end of the agreed-upon period. With vending machines, you must pay back your initial investment and stock up on supplies before you can start making money.
Passive income is extra money you make from things you don’t have to do.
