Best Ways to Make Money in College, Ranked by Net Pay
We rank college money options by net hourly pay after fees, mileage and tax. Tutoring nets $13.42 an hour via Wyzant; NYC delivery can fall below $7.25.
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In this guide
We ranked the ways to make money in college by what you keep per hour. Paid internships come first (NACE puts the average at $23.35 an hour), followed by tutoring and babysitting. If you qualify, Federal Work-Study is a solid fallback, because it pays at least minimum wage with no platform fee. Delivery apps and paid research studies rank lower once mileage, platform fees and self-employment tax come off.
We measure every option against one benchmark: an hour of tutoring sold through a platform.
The numbers (tutoring through Wyzant at the median tutor rate, per paid hour)
| Line | Per paid hour |
|---|---|
| Gross per hour | $20.84 |
| Costs per hour | $5.21 |
| Net per hour | $15.63 |
| Net after tax (estimate) | $13.42 |
Assumptions: we assume the posted rate equals the BLS median pay for tutors (May 2025 data). Costs are Wyzant’s 25% platform fee. Tax is federal self-employment tax only (15.3% on 92.35% of net earnings, per the IRS), and we assume $0 income tax because total income stays under the standard deduction. Sessions are online, so there is no travel cost. Rounded to the nearest cent at each line.
How we ranked college jobs
We rank by net hourly pay. That is what is left after the platform, the car and the IRS take their cut, divided by all the time you actually spent. The “all the time” part matters. Waiting for an order, replying to a parent or driving to a plasma center is unpaid, but it still uses hours you could have spent studying.
Here is what the research confirms for each option. Where we found no reliable pay figure, we say so rather than guess.
| Option | Pay figure we can confirm | What comes off | Main catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paid internship | $23.35/hr average (NACE, summer 2025) | Payroll withholding, no platform fee | Seasonal and competitive |
| Tutoring, your own students | $20.84/hr BLS median for tutors | Self-employment tax | You find every client yourself |
| Tutoring via Wyzant | Rate you set | 25% platform fee, plus SE tax | Unpaid messaging and prep time |
| Babysitting | $16.82/hr BLS median for childcare workers | SE tax if self-employed | Care.com requires 18+ and a background check |
| Federal Work-Study | At least the federal, state or local minimum wage, whichever is highest | Payroll withholding | Need-based. Not open to F-1 students |
| Delivery apps, NYC | $22.13/hr floor before tips, for preparation and delivery time | 72.5¢/mile car cost, SE tax | The floor does not cover every logged-in minute |
| Delivery apps, elsewhere | No official average we could confirm | Same as above | Age rules vary by state |
| Pet sitting via Rover | Rate you set | 20% fee for most sitters | Some US sitters are in pilots with different fees |
| Freelancing (Fiverr, Upwork) | Rate you set | Fiverr 20%. Upwork 0-15% | Fiverr earnings clear 14 days after an order is completed |
| Research studies (Prolific) | $8/hr minimum, $12/hr recommended to researchers | SE tax | The minimum is close to minimum wage |
| Reselling | Depends on the item | eBay, Mercari, Depop or Poshmark fees | One-off income, not a wage |
| Plasma donation | Varies by location and body weight | Travel time | At most twice in any 7 days, at least 2 days apart |
Three things stand out in the table:
- Employer jobs (internships, work-study) have no platform fee. Tax is withheld from your paycheck instead of being paid as self-employment tax. We did not model payroll withholding.
- Tutoring has the highest confirmed pay figure among the self-employed options. The cheapest way to sell it is to students who come to you directly.
- Outside NYC, we found no official pay data for the delivery apps at all.
Worked example: a month of tutoring
If tutoring is your plan, Wyzant Wyzant has the clearest fee structure we found. Tutors keep 75% of their posted rate. Students pay a separate 9% service fee that does not come out of your share. Tutors keep 100% of the rate for new students they refer themselves.
Assumptions: 6 paid hours a week for 4 weeks at the $20.84 BLS median rate, plus 1 unpaid hour a week of messaging and lesson prep.
- Paid hours: 6 × 4 = 24
- Total hours, including unpaid time: 24 + 4 = 28
- Gross: 24 × $20.84 = $500.16
- Wyzant fee (25%): $125.04
- Net before tax: $375.12
- Self-employment tax (14.13%, explained below): $53.00
- Net after tax: $322.12
- Per paid hour: $322.12 ÷ 24 = $13.42
- Per hour of total time: $322.12 ÷ 28 = $11.50
The second number is the honest one. Four unpaid hours a month cost you nearly $2 an hour.
Now suppose all 24 hours were with students you referred yourself, so there is no platform fee:
- Net before tax: $500.16
- SE tax: $70.67
- Net after tax: $429.49, or $17.90 per paid hour
Building your own client list is worth about $4.48 an hour.
Worked example: a delivery shift in New York City
We used NYC because it is the only place in our research with an official pay figure. New York City requires delivery apps for restaurants and groceries (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, Instacart, Shipt and others) to pay at least $22.13 an hour before tips, effective April 1, 2026. That minimum covers time spent getting ready for and making deliveries, not every minute you are logged in.
Assumptions:
- A 3-hour evening shift by car.
- 70% of that time counts toward the pay floor.
- You drive 30 miles.
- No tips (the worst case).
- Car cost uses the IRS 2026 standard mileage rate of 72.5 cents a mile, which the IRS bases on its yearly study of what it costs to run a vehicle.
- Logged-in time: 3.0 hours
- Time counted toward the floor (70%): 2.1 hours
- Pay at the floor: 2.1 × $22.13 = $46.47
- Car cost: 30 × $0.725 = $21.75
- Net before tax: $24.72
- Self-employment tax (14.13%): $3.49
- Net after tax: $21.23
- Per logged-in hour: $21.23 ÷ 3 = $7.08
That is below the $7.25 federal minimum wage, and it is before phone and data costs, which we did not price. The $22.13 floor looks generous. The car and the waiting time eat most of it.
Tips change the picture a lot. Add $15 in tips to the same shift:
- Net before tax: $39.72
- SE tax: $5.61
- Net after tax: $34.11, or $11.37 per logged-in hour
Outside NYC, we found no official pay figures for DoorDash, Uber Eats or Instacart, so we won’t invent one. Run the same arithmetic with your own earnings screen and odometer. Our DoorDash driver math after gas, wear and tax walks through it step by step.
Assumptions you can swap
- Self-employment tax: 15.3% on 92.35% of net earnings, which works out to 14.13% of net. It only applies once your net self-employment earnings for the year reach $400 (IRS Topic 554).
- Federal income tax: assumed to be $0. The 2026 standard deduction for a single filer is $16,100. If someone claims you as a dependent, your standard deduction is your earned income plus $450, capped at the regular amount. That means earned income up to $15,650 is still fully covered.
- State tax: not modeled. Check your state’s rules.
- Car cost: the IRS rate is a full-cost estimate. Bikes, e-bikes and scooters cost less per mile (DoorDash allows them in some areas), but we have no confirmed figure for them.
- Rounding: to the nearest cent at every line, so totals can differ by a cent from a straight multiplication.
This is not tax advice. It is arithmetic using published IRS rules.
What changes the answer
- Unpaid time. This is the biggest swing in every self-employed option. Add one unpaid hour for every six paid hours and tutoring drops from $13.42 to $11.50.
- Miles. On the IRS estimate, every extra mile in a car costs 72.5 cents. Ten more miles on our NYC shift takes $7.25 off before tax. The DoorDash breakdown shows how fast this adds up over a month.
- Fees. Platforms take anywhere from 0% to 25%:
- Upwork’s freelancer fee runs 0-15% and is fixed once the contract starts.
- Fiverr takes 20% of every order, extras included.
- Rover takes 20% from sitters who joined after March 1, 2016.
- Low annual totals. If your net self-employment income for the year stays under $400, there is no SE tax, so net after tax equals net.
- Tips. Tips can push delivery from below minimum wage to above it. For 2025 to 2028, a federal deduction covers up to $25,000 of qualified tips. Self-employed gig workers qualify only if their occupation is on the IRS list, and the deduction can’t exceed their net income from that work.
Compared with: minimum wage and the alternatives
All figures are per hour. Self-employed rows are after fees, costs and 14.13% SE tax. Employer rows are shown before payroll withholding, which we did not model.
| Option | Per hour |
|---|---|
| Federal minimum wage | $7.25 |
| NYC delivery shift, no tips (our example) | $7.08 |
| Prolific study at the $8 minimum | $6.87 |
| Prolific study at the $12 recommended rate | $10.30 |
| NYC delivery shift with $15 tips | $11.37 |
| Tutoring via Wyzant, per paid hour | $13.42 |
| Babysitting at the BLS median, if self-employed | $14.44 |
| Tutoring your own students | $17.90 |
| Paid internship, NACE average (gross) | $23.35 |
We left Federal Work-Study out of the table on purpose. It pays at least the federal minimum, or the state or local minimum if that is higher, so your number depends on where your school is. Check your school’s student pay scale. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since July 24, 2009, and states with a higher minimum require employers to pay it.
The internship average looks strong, but NACE notes it is down 3.4% since 2016 after inflation. Working through school is also normal: BLS data from October 2024 shows 44.6% of full-time college students were in the labor force.
Who can actually sign up
Many first-year students are 18, and several apps won’t take them.
| Platform | Minimum age | Other requirements |
|---|---|---|
| DoorDash | 18 in most states. 19 in AZ, CO, DE, FL, GA, ID, KY, MT, NJ, NM, TX, UT, WV. 21 for new applicants in CA | Smartphone. A car needs a license and personal auto insurance |
| Uber Eats | 18 by bike or on foot. 19 by motorbike, scooter or car (21 for cars in CA and NY) | US background check with an SSN |
| Instacart | 18 | Driver’s license, SSN, criminal and driving record checks |
| TaskRabbit | 18 | SSN, checking account, one-time non-refundable $25 fee, must work in an active US city |
| Care.com | 18 | Background check |
| Fiverr | 18 | Ages 13-17 can only sell through a parent’s account |
| CSL Plasma | 18-74 | At least 110 lb, ID, proof of address, no tattoos or piercings in the last 4 months |
Paying TaskRabbit’s $25 fee doesn’t guarantee approval. Count it as a cost that may never earn anything back.
How your earnings hit financial aid
For 2026-27, a dependent student can earn $11,770 before their income starts counting toward their contribution. Above that, 50% of available income counts. In plain terms, every $1,000 of available income over the allowance adds $500 to your contribution, which can shrink need-based aid.
The FAFSA uses income from two years earlier. The 2026-27 form looks at 2024 income, so what you earn this year shows up two aid years from now. If you are close to the line, talk to your financial aid office before you take on a big summer job.
The tax math you can’t skip
- You must report all income from selling goods or services, whether or not you get a form.
- Form 1099-NEC is now issued for payments of $2,000 or more (for payments after Dec 31, 2025). The old threshold was $600.
- Form 1099-K is issued once you pass $20,000 and 200 transactions. Most students will never get one, and getting one or not makes no difference to what they owe.
- SE tax starts at $400 of net self-employment earnings, well before either form shows up.
Keep a mileage log and a record of platform fees from day one. Both lower the net figure that SE tax is calculated on.
International students: read this before any app
If you are on an F-1 visa, most of this list is off-limits:
- On-campus work is capped at 20 hours a week during term.
- Full-time on-campus work is allowed during breaks if you plan to enroll for the next term.
- Off-campus work needs authorization. Florida State University specifically lists babysitting, private tutoring, private language lessons and Uber driving as unauthorized.
- F-1 students can’t get work-study.
According to Study in the States, unauthorized work gets reported through SEVIS. Your status ends and you must leave the US. No hourly rate is worth that.
Scams that target students
The FTC warns about unsolicited job offers by text, WhatsApp or Telegram that turn into fake check scams or “task scams,” where you eventually have to deposit your own money. Its student alert also flags:
- fake personal-assistant jobs and fake recruiters
- emails posing as professors or college offices that ask you to deposit a check and forward money
- requests to pay for starter kits or training
The FTC’s rule: never pay to get paid or get a job. TaskRabbit’s registration fee is the rare legitimate fee, and it is published on the platform’s own help page, not sent to you by a stranger.
Smaller options, briefly
- Reselling textbooks and dorm gear.
- eBay charges 15.3% on books and 13.6% in most other categories, plus $0.30 or $0.40 per order.
- Mercari charges sellers 10%.
- Depop has no selling fee for US sellers but charges 3.3% + $0.45 for payment processing.
- Poshmark charges $2.95 on sales under $15 and 20% on sales over $15.
- YouTube. Monetization needs 1,000 subscribers plus either 4,000 watch hours in 12 months or 10M Shorts views in 90 days. Treat it as a long project, not semester income.
- UserTesting. Pays through PayPal, usually 14 days after a test. Rewards vary, and you need a microphone.
- Athletes. Since July 1, 2025, schools can share revenue with athletes (up to about $20.5M per school in 2025-26). NIL deals over $600 go through the NIL Go clearinghouse.
Who this is not for
- If your course load leaves little spare time, any option with unpaid waiting time is a bad trade. Stick to paid-by-the-hour work.
- If you are 18 without a car, Uber Eats by bike or on foot is open to you everywhere, and a bike costs far less per mile than a car.
- If you are on an F-1 visa, stick to approved on-campus work.
Verdict in one number
$13.42 per paid hour. That is what a median-priced tutor keeps after a 25% platform fee and self-employment tax. It beats the federal minimum by $6.17, and it is the bar any other college hustle should clear on your own numbers.