According to Forbes, over 44 million college students owe more than $1.5 trillion in student loans.
As a student, earning extra bucks can help improve your school life and allow you to live comfortably. Your level of education does not matter.
There are ways you can earn a passive income doing something you are passionate or knowledgeable about.
Can you earn passive income as a student? Yes. You can earn a passive income by dedicating a few hours of your busy schedule to a passive income idea. Some ideas (like blogging, niche sites, selling digital products, charging scooters, selling eBooks, affiliate marketing etc.) are easy and can be done during your free time. Some are highly passive but others are active (but you can turn them into passive income ideas through outsourcing and automation).
In this article, we highlight 9 legit ways you can make passive income as a student.
Passive income ideas require you to be patient and dedicated to turn them into lucrative passive income streams.
The best part? With the right strategies, these ideas can earn you passive income past your student life and beyond!
Let’s get started.
Blogging
Blogging has become a popular way of earning passive income. As a student, you can share information or ideas you know or are passionate about and earn money through a blog.
With the right niche and excellent content, you can grow your audience, monetize your blog, and start earning passive income.
One of the most resourceful courses, Project 24 by Rick and Jim teaches you ways you can earn a full-time income with a monetized blog within 24 months.
You need to create a niche (offer information that resonates with a specific audience) and your content has to be high quality. This is why you should share information on things you are passionate or highly knowledgeable about.
With a good audience, you can monetize your blog and earn passive income from ads, affiliate marketing, selling digital & physical products etc.
A monetized blog can earn you hundreds or thousands of dollars monthly but do not expect this to happen overnight.
At first, you must be willing to put in a lot of work (like creating, editing, and posting content, building your site etc.) and monetary investment (to build, run, and promote your site).
With time, you can start earning passive income from your blog and earn more by creating and monetizing more blogs.
You can view this detailed guide about blogging to see how you can make $1000/month with a monetized blog.
Gaming
If you are a gaming fanatic, you can earn a passive income playing your favorite games.
Although almost nonexistent two decades ago, gaming has become a popular way of earning passive income today.
Students like Griffin Spikoski earned $200,000 in 2013 playing games online (source). You earn passive income from game tournaments, running a monetized blog, offering gaming courses, YouTube ads, donations, memberships, ad revenue on your site etc.
Live streaming your gaming skills of sites like YouTube and Twitch are effective ways of making passive income from gaming.
All you need is to build an audience, monetize your channel, and turn it into a passive income stream.
Once you monetize your channel or site, you earn passive income from ads, affiliate marketing, selling games & gaming equipment, donations etc.
Gaming may sound easy and lucrative, but it requires passion and dedication at the beginning.
To grow your audience, you need to create and post videos of you playing games, long live streaming hours, and experience in the games you choose. With time, it can become a lucrative passive income stream.
For more details about gaming and how you can earn $1000/month from it, please check out our guide.
Charging Scooters
In college, I (and many of my friends) owned electric scooters that helped us traverse campus easily. However, I did not think I could make money by charging scooters but now that I know about it, I feel obliged to share this knowledge with others.
The electric micro-mobility vehicles industry is becoming popular across the world (source) and charging electric scooters and bikes can be an excellent way of earning a passive income.
The best part? This is an extremely passive idea. During your free time or at night, you can pick a couple of scooters, charge them, deliver them back, and get paid.
All you need is to sign-up on a scooter charging service, pass the training program, and start charging scooters. You can make good money depending on the number of scooters you charge, your location, and popularity amongst scooter owners.
You can earn more by offering good delivery rates, timely deliveries, etc. You can grow your client base by signing up on two or more apps and promoting your services through social media.
For example, let’s imagine you charge $5/scooter and charge 5 of them every night. You can make 25/night or 750/month passive income without doing much.
You can learn more about charging scooters and how to make $2000/month passive income from it in this detailed guide.
YouTube
As a student, you can earn passive income through a monetized YouTube channel.
Your content and audience are key to the success of your channel. So, as long as you have excellent content and a growing audience, you can monetize your channel (by placing ads, affiliate marketing, selling digital and physical products, royalties, endorsements, etc.) and earn a passive income.
Currently, YouTube requires you to have at least 1,000 subscribers and 400k hours of watch time in the last 365 for your channel be put under review for monetization.
The content can be something you are knowledgeable or passionate about and would like to share with others. It is not an easy task so you must be willing to put in the work at the beginning.
With an active, subscribed audience and excellent content, YouTube can become a lucrative passive income stream for you as a student.
To learn more about making passive income with a monetized YouTube channel, please check out this comprehensive guide.
Creating Niche Sites
A niche site is a blog or site that addresses a specific topic and that resonates with a specific audience.
As a student, you can offer information you are knowledgeable or passionate about through a niche site and earn passive income from it.
For example, let’s say you are passionate about photography, instead of blogging about outdoor photography, you can create a niche site that addresses outdoor photography with DSLR cameras.
That way, you create a niche that helps you stand out, beat the competition, and attract a specific group of people.
According to Income school’s Project 24 with your niche site set right and by following their tested and proven strategies, you can earn $1000/month by running a niche site.
Your audiences visit your site in search for information, resources, and recommendations about a specific topic so your content must appeal to them. To create a successful niche site, offer content on popular topics that can easily become profitable.
You then monetize your site and start earning passive income from ads, affiliate marketing, selling merch, offering courses, email marketing etc.
With time, you can create other niche sites and earn thousands of dollars monthly as passive income.
For more details about niche sites and making passive income from them, please view this guide.
Food Delivery Apps
You can earn a passive income by delivering food through delivery apps (like UberEats, Deliveroo, and DoorDash) during your free time.
Depending on deliveries you make, location, and other factors like tips, you earn can $500/week or more as passive income (source).
All you need is to identify food delivery services in your area, sign up, ace the test, make deliveries, and make money. It is active income side hustle because you are involved in the delivery process.
However, it can be highly flexible and you can do it during your free time or over the weekend.
The best part? You can sign up on different apps available in your area and earn more income in the process.
You can grow your client base by and promoting your services through social media and earn more money.
For more about food delivery apps as a passive income source, please view this guide.
Chatbots
Chatbots are popular communication tools and people are earning passive income from them.
As a student, you can earn a passive income by creating and selling Chatbots online or monetizing Chatbots and earn up to $2000/month (source).
The best part? Bots are becoming more popular. By 2020, 80% of businesses will be using Chatbots (source) and by 2021, over $4.5 billion will be invested in Chatbots and other interactive AI systems (source).
You have to monetize your bot to earn passive income from it. Some ways of monetizing it are through advertising, using it to generate leads, conduct surveys, landing page conversions, eCommerce etc.
As long as your Chatbot offers quality content, you can make a lot of money from it passively.
Getting started on bots is easy and you can create Chatbots on sites like Tidio.
For more details on how you can leverage bots and earn passive income from it as a student, please read this detailed guide.
eBooks
As a student, you can make passive income off selling eBooks and it is both easy and highly passive.
You earn a passive income by creating and selling eBooks to online customers or by buying ready eBooks, reselling them for a profit, and can actually earn over $500/month with eBooks (source).
Selling eBooks is a highly passive means of making an income. During busy schedules, you can hire the services of a ghostwriter to (write, edit, publish etc.) your work for you and only wait to earn from it.
All you need is to identify a niche genre/topic, write popular content or the kind of content you would like to read, and list your book for sale on online sites.
You can write, upload, and sell your words easily on platforms like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.
Although you need some time and financial investment (to write or have your book written, edited, promoted etc.,) once it is completed and uploaded, you start to enjoy passive income.
Check out this guide for more information about how you can make passive income from eBooks.
Renting Your Things
If you have personal stuff that you don’t use much, you can rent it out to people who need it.
Nowadays, many sites allow you to list your personal stuff and rent it out to other people at a fee.
On sites like fatlama, you can list any item including bikes, electronics, clothes, household goods etc. and connect with clients looking for rental services.
The most important thing is to ensure that you rent out your stuff in good condition and at affordable prices. This helps grow your client base and make more money in the process.
You can learn more about peer-to-peer rental ideas and how you can earn over $3000/month renting your stuff on this guide.
Related Questions
How can I earn more passive income as a student? You can earn more income by combining two or more ideas. For example, let’s say you are passionate about gaming. You can earn passive income from gaming and running a monetized blog or YouTube channel about gaming. It all depends on what you are passionate about and able to do.
Are some passive income ideas better than others? All passive income ideas can earn you money, but the amount of money you make differs with the idea. The best way to identify an idea that fits you is considering things you are passionate about. With passion and dedication, any of the above ideas can earn you a decent passive income with time.
Do I need to invest money to earn passive income? Yes. All businesses require an initial investment but online ideas require a smaller amount than physical businesses. Make sure you set aside some money to help you get started with the passive income idea you choose. The amount differs with the idea so it is important that you research extensively about the idea before you get started.