I am currently working a 40 hour 10 hour shift warehouse job soon to be 50 hours a week, and I don’t think I can handle working there anymore. I will be having a full schedule this coming spring. I’d rather use my energy focusing on school and having a part-time job, but I am curious, what are some good part-time jobs that college students have?
I think they take part-time in diners or some school related works 
working on campus is always best (IMO) no commute! (if you live on campus)
My campus has five(?) dining halls that are almost always hiring. Other than that…retail, other food service, tutoring…
Waitering: $35/hr.
Playing piano in a bar: $40/hr
Programming: $160/hr
Sax tutor: $30/hr
Martial Arts Instructor: $40/hr.
Web Design: $55/hr
Wow is this disconnected from reality. Let me tell you the actual pay of these, along with their availability.
- Waitering: $35/hr First, the range is probably more like $15 to $30 an hour: relatively easy enough but the upper range is very hard to come by. Average of $20 probably.
Availability: Moderate
Average Weekly Pay: $20 an hour, flexible hours
- Playing piano in a bar: $40/hr Incredibly hard to find, what bar even has pianos anymore? Also, low hours. Weekly pay of probably $160 even with two nights a week. If you consider you could instead do a job that pays $15 an hour for the same total money, it's not even worth it if you find it.
Availability: Virtually Nonexistent
Average Weekly Pay: $150 per week
- Programming: $160/hr This is by far the most laughable. Disregarding that as a salary that is over 300k, and a college student simply wouldn't be in college if this were true, the actual pay of a well-paid programming job for a college student is between $20 and $30 an hour, and can easily be under $20.
Availability: Competitive even for those capable, and is a hard skill that takes years to learn
Average Weekly Pay: $25 an hour
- Sax tutor: $30/hr - Correct as far as I know
- Martial Arts Instructor: $40/hr. Again, who has this ability? And if so, it still would not be enough hours
Availability: Virtually Nonexistent
Average Weekly Pay: $200 a week
- Web Design: $55/hr Again, second on the list of unbelievable things here. Web designers get paid less than programmers most of the time. Again, it also takes a good deal of skill that most people don't have.
Availability: Moderate for those qualified
Average Weekly Pay: $15 an hour, flexible hours
Please, if you are going to try to be helpful, be informed in the domain. No wonder you still think people can work their way through college.
Bodangles gave some good advice for starting points: I think that, being a waiter/waitress. If you do have technical skills feel free to go that route, but it will be easier to find other jobs unless you are trying to set up your career in which it would be better to get a job in the field of relevance.
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These are all current realities.
A friend’s son took a couple quarters off from HYPSM to make exactly that, waitering.
Another friend’s son makes $40/hr in tips/pay playing piano in a bar. That’s up from $20/hr when he figured out he needed to play what people wanted to hear.
That’s what daughter was offered for contract programming this last summer. She’s not even studying CS. I made the equivalent thirty years ago on debugging contracts and microprocessor projects.
Son was offered that for sax tutoring. He didn’t even hang out feelers. His sax tutor got more.
That’s what qualified martial arts instructors get for covering classes. My kids are all Second Dan. Pluswhich they get to work out. Bonus. Oh, I forgot dance instructor, although it doesn’t pay quite as much.
I was paying that for web design 15 years ago. I know a Sophomore who gets more. None of these people have a shortage of such work.
Some students go to college for an education, to be productive in something they like and are good at, not just so they can earn a basic living.
Small cases don’t make these market realities. Do you realize that the median salary for CS nationally is 88k per year, and that your proposed hourly pay is over 4 times that? And this is for full-time jobs and careers.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Computer_Scientist/Salary
Frankly, I don’t believe your numbers. Especially as someone in the web design and programming fields.
Single cases of people you cherry picked are not reflective of actual realities. Additionally, the availability of each job is also important, which you ignored.
Yes, those who already have money usually. Education is a luxury in this country for the most part. Most people do not have that goal.
I want to point out the average pay for waiting/waitressing in the US is $4/hour
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Waiter%2FWaitress/Hourly_Rate
After considering tips, the average is still not $32/hour.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/how-much-do-waiters-really-earn-in-tips/385515/
I don’t know where you are getting this information, but the experiences of a few are not the experiences of the majority.
I also to implore you to consider the fact that the majority of students graduate from college with debt in the United States. The average debt load for the class of 2012 was $29,400, according to a report released Wednesday by the Institute for College Access & Success’ Project on Student Debt. Nearly 4/5 college students work at least a part-time job during college. Clearly your assessment is not an accurate depiction of the majority.
Not everyone does things based on what “average” is.
You’re right. About 50% of the people in the people in the world do below the average. Because that is the definition of average. So for those posted and accurate numbers, about 50% (assuming the median is close to the average) will be below that line. In reality, over 50% will be “below average” as any high cases will move the median below the average.
It’s an incredulous fallacy of logic to believe that everyone can do above the average, in anything. It is simply impossible. If we introduce economics into this, even if everyone that was “average” worked 100 times as hard (as you appear to think those who do “average” are not doing the right things), the pay would not change: that’s a pillar of classic capitalist supply and demand.
Nobody chooses to be paid the “average” wage. Factors like race, age, gender, socioeconomic status, etc. play a big role in wage especially in jobs that rely on tipping as part of the salary.
To the original question jobs available on college campuses include becoming a teaching assistant, a tutor, retail sales clerk, food service (bartender, waiter, etc.).
Many colleges offer work-study positions as well. You can also speak with a career counselor (depending on your university) regarding possible paid internship positions that could possibly give you some relevant experience for when you graduate. If you have a certain talent (maybe you’re really good at editing essay) putting flyers up for your services around your campus is also an option though there is less guarantee of a response. Some other ways to earn money could be taking online surveys or participating in advertising studies or psychology studies, which are often targeted at college students. Many companies are also often looking for brand ambassadors on college campuses and these positions may be paid.
Contract programming at $160 an hour? That seems insane. A top consulting company might bill a client that, but the programmer will take home as small percentage. I suppose maybe an Assembler programmer could pull down over $100 because it is so rare. But no complany paying those rates for a newbie programmer would be in business long. Call Tata – $25/hour tops.
Individuals don’t know until they try.
@intparent The company was and is the largest one of it’s type in the world. Appears not to have hurt them. They needed work. I could do it. Subsequent contracts were solicited.
Tutoring is a good part time job. I tutor anywhere from 5 to 15 hours a week at 12 bucks an hour. It’s on campus and it’s relatively low stress.
So you got the contract? I though you said your daughter did. I can see possible scenarios where an experienced adult might wrangle a contract like that. But not a college student. If it was someone like Accenture – they probably turned around and billed the client $250 an hour. 
@intparent Are you referring to my post?
Yes.
I did that a long time ago and she’s has been offered programming jobs, too. So, both.
Oh ! how’s an online job then? there are a lot of those nowadays right? But I don’t really think it can help you that much. You may want to engage in something which can give you the experience you need at this point.