18 Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students – 2025

February 24, 2025

best online tutoring jobs for college students

If you’re looking to make some extra bucks during your college career, you might think about tutoring online as a way to use your expertise to make money. It’s a great idea! Where do you get started? Check out our list of the 18 Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students and Teens for examples of how you, the enterprising college student that you are, can get started tutoring online—right now.

Many of these websites are platforms that host tutoring profiles, and they all have their associated pros and cons. We’ve done the research to help you figure out what you need to know so you can pursue the leads that make the most sense to you. Some of these sites are more involved and will actually train you to become a tutor. Some are way more hands-off and allow you to charge pretty healthy rates for your mind and your time.

And the college work help doesn’t stop there!

And when the budget needs to grow, check out these online tutoring jobs for college students:

Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students

1) italki

Pros:
I’ll start by recommending italki simply because I had a great experience with them when I was searching for a tutor for myself—and my tutor said he loved working with them, too. I wanted to learn to speak Italian, and I was searching for a native speaker living in Italy to help me out. italki connected me with a professional language teacher who I’m actually still friends with to this day! He recommended tutoring on italki—and it doesn’t get much better than a personal recommendation.

You can set your own rates, and you can build your own client list. italki is essentially a platform to advertise your language teaching and tutoring skills. Anyone can tutor on italki, whether you’re a professional or a “community” tutor, which means that college students can easily set themselves up with a client list.

Cons:
It’s really a platform to teach languages. If you want to tutor people in math or science, italki won’t be for you.

The platform does “close” languages when they have an abundance of tutors in a specific language. If the language you know and can tutor in (English, for example) is closed, then you have to wait until italki reopens that language to apply to be a tutor. It can be unreliable to get started that way, but once you’re in, you’re in.

2) Ignite Reading

Pros:
Ignite seems, in contrast to some other online tutoring services, like one of the most legit businesses on this list. They offer training and certification for tutors, and they claim that anyone can be a reading tutor. You get paid to complete their Science of Reading Certification Program, and from there, your pay increases (and presumably you’ll get more clients). Ignite does the work for you, and you can work anywhere from 8 to 30 hours during the academic year.

Cons:
The pay is comparably low to what you could get by building your own business across different tutoring platforms. Uncertified tutors get $17/hour, and certified tutors get $20. I’m listing this as a con, but really, it’s not a bad paycheck at all for a college student looking to supplement their life with some extra cash. Depending on your situation, Ignite could be right for you.

Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students & Teens (Continued)

3) Wyzant

Pros:
Wyzant is an online platform that connects tutors with clients. You get to select your students, set your rates, and you can set up direct deposit to get paid quickly. Tutors on the landing page right now have rates listed from $95–$160 per hour, which is nothing to shake a stick at.

Cons:
There are lots of negative reviews on forums like Reddit with people talking about not getting paid enough or being taken advantage of by the platform. This is the case with many of these tutoring platforms, so keep your head on a swivel. Online reviewers say that Wyzant takes a 25% cut out of your rate to host you on the platform, and they recommend adjusting your rate accordingly (which accounts for the dollar figures you see above).

4) Lessonpal

Pros:
Lessonpal is very clear about the service fee they take off the top of your rates: 10%. The clarity is great because it means you won’t be surprised when you get paid. And you’ll know how to adjust your rates accordingly. Plus, it’s among the lower service fees I’ve found in researching this article. You don’t have to be a certified teacher to tutor with Lessonpal. Just be at least 18 years old and live in the United States.

Cons:
Lessonpal is pretty hands-off. You get a platform to display your services, and there don’t seem to be many other bells and whistles attached to the tutoring process. So, it might be a great place for an enterprising young person to continue to build their tutoring platform, but you might get the most long-term, reliable income from this service.

Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students & Teens (Continued)

5) BookNook

Pros:
Remote math and reading tutor applications seem to be consistently open, which means you can hop into the BookNook tutoring experience when you’re ready. They provide access to a tutoring community that (according to the site) provides opportunities to share experiences and teaching tools with other tutors, as well as tech support and professional development resources.

Cons:
Some folks online state that BookNook is saturated with tutors and doesn’t have enough student demand to keep all those tutors occupied. Unlike some of the other platforms that simply host a tutor’s profile, you actually need to pass an interview and be hired as a tutor with the company, so there’s always a chance that BookNook might not be a match for your specific skill set.

6) Indeed or ZipRecruiter, for local tutoring opportunities

Pros:
This piece of advice might be a little more complicated, but it might also yield a better result. If you search these sites for jobs specifically located in your town or city, you’ll be able to pop into a local establishment, introduce yourself, and network with people who could give you a job. Search for “tutor” on Indeed, ZipRecruiter, or other local job boards (like city newspaper job boards). Then comb the results to see if there are real, local establishments that are hiring for remote or online tutors in your area. When I did this search for my own city, I saw that companies like Mathnasium and Huntington are hiring for online tutors despite having fixed, brick-and-mortar tutoring centers.

Cons:
You might find that these fixed establishments don’t have remote offerings or they want certified teachers. But searching is the only way you’ll find out!

Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students & Teens (Continued)

7) Outschool

Pros:
Outschool doesn’t require a degree or formal training in any subject in order to teach, so it’s a great platform for college students who are proficient and passionate. You get to design your own curriculum and classes, and there isn’t a ton of paperwork to get caught up in. You set your own schedule, and there doesn’t seem to be a ton of needling by Outschool. Set up a profile, and start marketing yourself to clients!

Cons:
Outschool takes a 30% service fee from your rates, but you have control over your rates. So, if you charge $100/hour, you’re left with $67 (about) for yourself. Don’t forget to take out taxes! You’ll be left with less than you think, but it’s still more than $0. A part of the trick of tutoring with a platform like Outschool is finding the price point at which you are offering competitive pricing and quality lessons while not overworking yourself. You’ll have to do the math for yourself and see if you can sustain a client load with Outschool to make it worth it.

8) Varsity Tutors

Pros:
Varsity Tutors is an organization that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree and will give you a paycheck, so it might be the perfect fit for some college students.

The process to apply is pretty simple: fill out an online application, record a video interview demonstrating your tutoring skills, build your online profile, match with clients, and get started tutoring.

Cons:
You can find a fair number of people online complaining about the tutoring experience with Varsity Tutors. The pay is dependent upon your experience, your reviews, whether you’re doing 1:1 tutoring or group classes, and the subject that you’re tutoring, but it seems that rates start at about $15/hour and increase from there. Some tutors say that the pay can be really dismal for a long time, and if you don’t have a lot of client ratings (because you’re new) it can be hard to be matched with new students and make money.

Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students & Teens (Continued)

9) Arbor Tutors

Pros:
Tutor across a wide range of subjects like English, Math, Foreign Languages, Science, Test Prep, and more. Arbor Tutors employs graduates and undergraduates from elite institutions like Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia.

Cons:
Students who have sought out their services report that the upfront costs are really high and the whole process felt a little “scammy.” But that’s just what some people report on the internet on the customer side. It might be worth applying and seeing for yourself what it would be like to work there.

10) Amplify Tutors

Pros:
Amplify is a tutoring company that seems to be providing science-based tutoring in two major suites: Literacy and Math and Science. Their research-backed approach to supplementing classroom learning is geared toward supporting teachers and students in the learning journey. This is not a platform where you can put up a profile and attract clients, but rather, a company for whom you must apply, get hired, and work. However, they frequently have tutoring and internship openings, and the company could be a great way for a college student to get a start in the industry.

Cons:
Again, you’re not looking at the kind of remote, client-facing platform that many other sites on this list provide. But if you’re interested in jumping into the industry and you want to see how tutoring enterprises can support teachers in the classroom, Amplify might be a great place to consider as you continue your college career. The internship portion seems like it holds the most potential for university students looking to dive into this field.

Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students & Teens (Continued)

11) Tutor.com

Pros:
Run by The Princeton Review, Tutor.com is a way that tutors—including college students—can connect with clients in a wide range of subject areas. The service runs 24/7, so you can set your own schedule that meets your needs and the needs of your clients. You get to benefit from the credibility of The Princeton Review, which might help you get more clients.

Cons:
Regarding pay, the site says, “More information on our pay structure will be provided once you have successfully completed the initial application and subject exam phase of the process.” That’s always a little red flag for me. You’re trying to work for these people. They should tell you how much they’re going to pay you. Glassdoor lists the salary range at anywhere from $17–$46/hour. Some folks on Reddit are saying they were able to make more than that. One Reddit user cited making about $2000/month for 35 hours, which is about $57/hour. Are these figures reliable? There’s only one way to find out. But these ranges line up with what you might expect from an online tutoring gig. Still, why wouldn’t Tutor.com just say that outright, you know?

12) Care.com

Pros:
Care.com is not just for babysitters and nannies—they have a tutoring page, as well. Their site works by connecting people offering a service (like tutoring or babysitting) with others nearby. So, this could be a great way for college students to pick up tutoring hours in their area. You would also be able to customize the experience. If you only want to meet with your students online, that’s up to you. If you want to market yourself as a person who meets within a certain radius of your campus or home, Care.com would be helpful in facilitating that kind of setup.

Cons:
There’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to get clients with Care.com. You will be competing with whoever else is in your area. And you’ll be relying on need within your chosen radius, too. So, it might not be super profitable, but you likely won’t lose by putting a profile on this site.

Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students & Teens (Continued)

13) MathMaster Tutors

Pros:
Are you a math master? Well, this might just be the side hustle for you. MathMaster isn’t a classic tutoring service. It is an app where people upload math questions, and you help solve them. They consider undergraduates in their 2nd year or later who are studying Mathematics. You have to work four consecutive hours per day, which constitutes one shift, and your shifts are negotiated when you get hired. MathMaster says most of their “experts” are working part-time, combining this work with their studies or other full-time work.

Cons:
The need to work four consecutive hours might not work for you! It could be a dealbreaker. You also will be helping students solve problems, but it doesn’t seem like you’ll have one-on-one contact with students—though I can’t be sure about that. It’s not super clear. Of course, if you’re not a math expert, this choice doesn’t apply to you.

14) Upswing

Pros:
If you’re an advanced student who has some tutoring experience from your life on-campus, you might find a happy home tutoring with Upswing. The open tutoring positions (linked above) don’t list a degree as a requirement. However, they do want you to have subject matter expertise and knowledge of how to tutor. It seems like a more stable opportunity than other profile-only sites on this list. But that might come with the cost of needing to have more expertise.

Cons:
The writing tutor position, for example, prefers that applicants have “Writing Center experience.” That’s something that undergrads could easily have, but it’s highly dependent on your specific experience. The pay isn’t great: $13/hour for asynchronous tutors; $15/hour for synchronous. If you’re looking for some extra cash and you have the experience to meet the minimums, it could be worth checking out.

Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students & Teens (Continued)

15) Preply

Pros:
Preply is an online tutoring site that hosts your tutoring profile, connects you with students, and provides tutoring resources. It’s free to post your profile. Plus you can teach more than 100 subjects, and it’s fully remote and based on your schedule.

Cons:
Preply tends to get raked over the coals on Reddit. People say it can take two years to become an established tutor who makes real money on the site. Preply lists English tutor average rates at $15–25/hour. This is much lower than you’ll find on other tutoring pages. But Preply has a fairly complicated “commission model” (counterintuitive use of the word), which is really their “service fee model,” aka how much money they take from your displayed rate. Your first lesson with every student is unpaid. Then, the starting service fee is 33%. It starts to decrease once you teach more lessons, but it doesn’t decrease to 18% until you’ve tutored more than 400 hours. So, it makes a lot of sense that folks on Reddit say that it takes two years to get established!

16) DIY Tutoring Side Hustle

If you want to build your tutoring side hustle empire and you don’t want to deal with service fees and teaching requirements, you can always build your own small tutoring business. You can advertise your work on different freelance websites like Fiverr and Upwork (below) and create a new series of social media profiles creating content about your tutoring expertise and how you would serve your students. If you live in a place with several nearby middle or high schools, you could reach out to those schools to see if it’s possible to advertise tutoring services through a directory or on the schools’ websites. If you’re on campus, you should check out on-campus tutoring opportunities that will help you build your skills and boost your credibility.

Here are the steps we’d recommend following (in whatever order works for you) to create your own tutoring side hustle:

  1. Create freelance tutoring profiles on Fiverr and Upwork. Create an independent email that you check several times throughout the day to find out about job leads.
  2. Create flyers to advertise your services and post them in local coffee shops, cafes, grocery stores, libraries, etc. You can also use social media.
  3. Get experience tutoring on your college campus. Check out tutor training at your school’s writing center or student services center.

Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students — Honorable Mentions

These two sites do require that you have a degree and/or a teaching certification, so they’re not necessarily going to help you if you’re still an undergraduate. But they do seem like potentially stable and profitable ways for new and recent grads to build their career, break into teaching and tutoring, or just make extra cash with a side hustle.

17) Learner

18) DojoTutor

Best Online Tutoring Jobs for College Students – Additional Resources