How many of the kids today would like to start earning either to get started on paying their student loans or just to have an extra allowance?

An example of a venture started as a work-at-home gig by students is CollegeHumor. a web site that contains funny photos, videos and writeups enjoyed mostly by highschoolers, college students and office-workers. It was launched in 1999 by Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen with only $200.

Entrepreneur's Journey also featured CollegeHumor and discussed what contributed to its success:

1. Traffic, lots and lots of traffic.
2. Sell something that your traffic would buy.

The monetization part of maintaining a niche website comes from either ads or online retailing of products that your traffic would buy as what CollegeHumor has succeeded in doing.

Aside from maintaining niche website, professional blogging can also be a viable and very fun source of income for a student since it can be done part-time.

You can either start learning how to blog using free blogging services such as Blogger or Wordpress just to get the feel of the blogosphere and what it takes to earn from it - writing prowess, passion for your topic, and consequently targetted traffic or readers for your blog. Then, if you'd like to concentrate on your blogging, you can join blog networks such as Creative Weblogging, Inc. for more income opportunities.