Make Quick Cash: Easy Jobs for Broke Students

Are you in school and always broke? Do you already have a job but have no money after you pay all of your bills? Here are some ways you can make some quick cash in a few hours or less!

Research and Surveys

You can sell your body to science as a research subject in a number of ways to make money:

• The National Institute for Health is paying volunteers $3,000 to get the flu and report back. You need to be a non-smoker between the ages of 18 and 50, and live near enough to Bethesda, Maryland to visit their clinical center. If you need something closer to home, or contracting the flu is not appealing, you can visit ClinicalTrials.gov site, which has 188,000 studies from psychology to auto-immune disorders in all 50 states and 189 countries.
• For non-governmental work, ResearchMatch.org is connecting 75,000 registered research participants to 400 studies across the United States.
• Your university probably has research projects of its own, if not within a particular center then via individual graduate students that probably have stipends available. Columbia University has its own Recruit Me site, for example. Check your school’s website for grad student postings!

If selling your body is unappealing, you can alternatively sell your opinion to research:

• Join a database conglomerate like FocusPointeGlobal.com to be instantly part of market research that can pay sometimes hundreds of dollars for an opinion if you are the right demographic for a particular study!
• FindFocusGroups.com lists current resources to join focus groups and surveys both online and in person across the country that pay or offer gift cards. Right now you can earn a $15 Amazon gift card by participating in a consumer review study with IndieGoGo, for example.
• You can also fill out online surveys if you are up late at night on your computer anyway. Try these sites looking for your feedback: OpinionOutpost.com, SurveyBods.com, or GlobalTestMarket.com.

You can get paid for opinions in a different way – by building up your reputation as a critic!

• SlicethePie.com is an online forum that pays you to review new music and artists’ fashion choices. They sell your opinions back to record labels! They have given away nearly $2 million since 2007.

Shopping

If you love to shop, get paid for doing so in more than one way:

• You probably have a credit card and use it readily if you are broke; make sure you are using one that gives you rewards, or better yet cash back! Many times you can double or triple your rewards by going through the credit card company’s online links to particular partner stores or promos. If you can, arm yourself with two or more cards that promote different shopping segments to constantly earn back on your purchasing.
• Sign up for sites like Ebates.com to get cash credits for percentages of your purchases at 1800 popular online retailers you probably already shop at anyway. They will send you periodic checks or let you maximize rewards with gift cards.
• You can become a “mystery shopper” to get paid to go to stores and report back on your experience! Try MarketForce.com, which pays shoppers with cash, food, or merchandise.

Performance

For drama majors or extroverts, you can get paid to perform:

• Be an extra in an upcoming film, student production, or other video project and you can get paid quickly for interesting work. Mine sites like Backstage.com that list where extras are needed, like for one current Netflix movie production with Adam Sandler.
• If you are a budding musician or can do odd and entertaining things, try doing so for $5 cash on Fiverr.com. Featured listings are creating a custom rap song and making a product jingle out of provided lyrics.