How to build wealth as a college student (2024)

Currently, I am a final year college student who is stuck at home and has his final exams pending (Thanks corona virus). I am by no means wealthy. However, I have spent considerable time learning about finance, wealth and business during my free time from the age of 16.

There are no secrets to wealth. If you were to study history and all the current day “wealthy” people, you will find that they were wealthy because they own assets.

Now Assets include the following — cash, stocks, bonds, businesses, real estate. Period.

It might seem daunting at this point of time and age as to how do you go about acquiring those assets. The only cash you have is probably the pocket money you get, you don’t understand stocks or bonds and real estate is out of reach. And businesses is actually one of the things that might be in your reach.

So, here is a small list that will help you start building wealth while you are in college-

1.Remember that at this point in your life, an investment in yourself will reap the best benefits. So try new things and acquire new skills.

You are young right now. Time is on your side. That is one the biggest blessings available to you. Don’t squander it all on parties, netflix and gaming. Sure, enjoy life and all those things. But don’t just enjoy. Invest in yourself.

You are completing your studies which is one of your best investments in yourself, but don’t stop just over there. Try to read more books, learn new things like an instrument or a new language. Build up your body (which is a great way to invest in your health).
These things are the ones you will be thankful for later on in your life.

Personal example — I really got into website development at the age of 14–15. I didn’t delve very deep into coding, however I did design a few websites for some of my father’s friends. In the process, I learnt a lot about web hosting and domains. That knowledge is so helpful that I can literally setup a website in 2 hours from nothing.

This is nothing to boast off, but when I started of with my new venture/startup — The Connectere (you can check it out if you want), I was able to handle all the tech stuff on my own.

2. Increase your income. Here is how

Your pocket money is barely able to make it through to the third week of the month. In order to start generating wealth, you need to increase your income as a first step.

Now you can increase your income in a multitude of ways -

A) Get a side job (Not recommended). I find if you were to pursue a job, it will suck up a lot of your time and also it is highly unlikely that you will find a job you would enjoy working.

B) Freelancing (Recommended) — This ties up with learning a skill. If you are skilled enough at something, you can easily get started with freelancing. If you’re not already aware, freelancing is the gig economy. You get paid for doing a gig. That’s it. There is no obligations to continue working after the deal is over.
This concept has caught on. You can hire a freelancer for a lot of stuff — logo design, website design, app development, article writing, SEO, video editing and the list goes on.

So the way to earn via freelancing is simple — Learn a skill -> Pick up a few projects for cheap/free -> Build a portfolio of your work -> Increase your brand and visibility -> Charge more for your work.

Do note that this is not an easy process, but doing this will equip you with a sh*t ton of real life business skills as you comb through everything.

C) Social media influencer/Youtube (Recommended) — This has blown up in the last 3 years. The idea here is that you build up a large enough following on social media and then you get paid to promote a product or service or even another page ! You can build a following based on any niche — gaming/memes/sports/arts/etc.
Personal example — I built a meme page on instagram — Sarcasmscene when I was back in high school. I built a small following. However, do note that try to do something you enjoy doing as you need to be consistent in order to gain a substantial following.

Youtube is also something that you’re aware about. The people that upload videos get paid when viewers watch those annoying ads. Gamers/vloggers have gone on to build insane audiences and have even monetised them.

D) Blogging/other businesses (Recommended) — Blogging can also be a good source of revenue for you. You could write about a particular topic or your opinion on the same and monetise it with ads or affiliate links. For the sake of this post, I won’t go very deep into this.

3. Learn Financial Discipline

Financial Discipline is very important. If you can’t control your money, it won’t matter how much you earn. You will never have enough. That is why you need to be in control of your finances, not the other way round.
Here is how you go about building financial discipline -

• Track all your expenses and income. Use a tracking app on your phone or write it in a diary. The first step to improvement is measuring.
• Cut down on unnecessary expenditures. This includes spending a lot on entertainment or eating out or clothing.
• Save a portion of any income you earn. This is really important. Do not skip this step. If you can’t do this, forget about building wealth.
• Don’t take on debt. I can promise you that there is nothing at this age that is worth taking a loan for.

4. Learn about investing

Earning money is only half of the process. The other half is learning how to keep that money safe and to grow that money.

That is why you need to learn how to invest the money that you earn and save. Now by investing I don’t mean go and buy stocks. Maybe they aren’t for you. And that is totally fine. But do learn about other investment vehicles like-

• Bank FDs, term deposits (low risk)
• Stocks (high risk)
• Bonds (medium to low risk)
• P2P lending (high risk)
• Cryptocurrencies

This is not a comprehensive list. Learn how to park your funds! But learn before you park your money.

5. Start Now!

Don’t wait till you graduate college. Don’t wait till you have a job. Start right now. As they say — “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now”

Make compounding your friend. It will help a sh*t load in the future for sure.

6. Find like minded people who have goals. Be choosy when it comes to your friends

You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. So make sure that those 5 people are the ones you want to be around.

Now on the other hand, there are a lot of negative people. They’ll pull you back and might even look down on you that you are doing all of these things and not partying with them. I can promise it will be worth it. Be careful of who you spend your time with.

So that was a small guide to building wealth while in college. I am by no means an expert. I am merely a beginner and a life long learner hoping to add some value to your life.