Paying for college
By Julie
Sturgeon • Bankrate.com
1. Tutoring. Service angles work well because
students rarely can get their hands on funding outside of maxing
out credit cards.
2. Music. Those who can sing or play instruments
offer their skills at parties and upscale campus functions. One
group in Tanabe's experience even billed themselves as the "Off-Key
Singing Telegrams," capitalizing on their lack of talent.
3. Baby- and Pet-sitting. Graduate students
and professors travel and someone has to keep the home fires burning.
4. T-shirts. College humor is very specific
to a generation and campus, Tanabe points out, so who best to turn
out an in-demand product that highlights it?
5. Ebay Sellathons. The Internet's yard sale
provides the perfect place to peddle everything from cameras to
handmade jewelry. The true winners in this category sell other people's
stuff on consignment. One energetic young man in the Hinman dorm
pulled in $500,000 in 2002 reselling textbooks.
The trick to choosing, says Jeffery Sloan, managing
partner of StartupNation.com
in Birmingham, Mich., lies in your personal time constraints. Tutoring
often requires face-to-face time; Ebay stores allow you to fill
orders in the middle of the night.
Keys to Success
But some things never change. Even young business owners need
to understand the fundamentals to succeed, says Sloan. Books can
convey much of the business plan and bookkeeping information. They
also need viable ways to collect money owed. Since most dorm-room
ventures can't accept credit card payments easily, Sloan suggests
checking out PayPal and similar online intermediaries to secure
the upfront payments.
"We have found in every business that we have
been involved with that people don't like to let go of their money,"
the Baker twins warn future entrepreneurs. "If you can figure
out a way to trade services, you may still end up with something
of great value, even if it's not in the form of cash."
They exchanged advertising for a 36-inch flat-screen
television, restaurant meals and car washes.
Students taking this path also must show an ability
to multitask. "You need a passion for what you're doing, and
you must be disciplined," Sloan says.
Indeed, Bower finds herself amazed at the teens who
win her competition. "They are dynamite. The words 'can't,
won't and don't' aren't in their vocabulary," she says. That's
one reason why the GSEA recently published "Student Entrepreneurs:
14 Undergraduate All-Stars Tell Their Stories," highlighting
its winners' stories and advice.
The profits can be iffy. Because the independence
allows students to work around class and social schedules, Bower
believes the lifestyle makes up the differential when these risk-takers
don't make quite as much as their fast-food counter colleagues.
In the final sifting, Tanabe estimates most student business owners
make about the same wages as the hourly crowd.
"It all depends on your goals," Sloan says.
"If you are not interested in growing this business, I have
to tell you quite frankly that you may be better suited to taking
a job."
And beware the final bugaboo: You could succeed
in business but fail all your classes, Tanabe warns.
Julie Sturgeon is a freelance writer
based in Indiana.
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