7 College Business Ideas to Start with No Money

If you want to become an entrepreneur, there are a number of college business ideas you can launch with very little money. Here are the top businesses you can start now:

College Business Idea #1 – Tutoring

There are always students that are looking for help to improve their grades in certain courses. You can make money for yourself by setting up a tutoring service to help them out. You can either do the tutoring yourself or hire other students so you can serve multiple people at the same time.

And don’t restrict yourself to academics. Maybe your friends need some help with budgeting or getting out of college credit card debt. If you can tutor them in these areas, do so…for a fee.

I personally never tutored since I didn’t have the patience for it, but one of my college roommates made $15 an hour giving voice lessons to fellow music majors!

College Business Idea #2 – Become a Dot Com Mogul

You can start a couple of dot com businesses from your own dorm room. You can create a website, blog, or an e-commerce store that can make you some cash while in classes. You can sell also ad space to companies looking to gain a presence online.

I already know one college student who is making quite a bit just by running several blogs. Do you have a web empire in your future?

College Business Idea #3 – Hire Yourself Out

Outsource all of your talents to other students for a flat fee. You could pick up pizza or dry cleaning or run a bunch of errands for people who live in your dorms. I actually interviewed for an assistant position with a multi-millionaire who started his small business as a dry cleaning service in college dorms. Do you know people who have money? Do you know people who need to borrow money? Become a loan broker or loan your own money out. Anything is possible.

College Business Idea #4 – Resell Textbooks

Students are always in need of textbooks, and you can provide them through your own textbook exchange program. You can pretty easily buy books for a buck or two more than the local school store and resell them for a few bucks less than the school store to next year’s students. You can also sell any of the ones you may end up stuck with online at places like Half.com.

College Business Idea #5 – Start a College Paper

If your college does not have a newspaper, you can start your own for some extra cash. You’ll need to provide up-to-date information on the latest happenings on the campus, but the return can be pretty good. Alternatively, you could start a free “paper” online and sell ad space once you gather a solid reader base.

College Business Idea #6 – Find Jobs for Other College Students

College students are often looking for employment to pay the bills, and many of them have trouble finding decent jobs. You can develop a relationship with a few employers and provide them with pre-screened college employees for a small fee. Be on the lookout for kids who drop out of college. They will need your services even more even though there are tons of great jobs that you can get without a degree from some college. I have met one person who actually turned a small head-hunting venture like this into his full-time career once he graduated.

College Business Idea #7 – Take Notes for Pay

Lots of students miss class and need someone to provide them with the notes. Instead of just giving away notes for free, you can charge every student a few bucks for one-time access to your notes or even have special semester rates. You’ll be taking the notes in class anyway, so why not make a little spending money off of them?

Can you think of any other great business ideas for a college student?

The following is a post from staff writer Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, where she writes about finding the balance between paying your bills, saving for your future and budgeting in the fun stuff along the way.