How to Make Extra Money at Kennesaw State University: A Student's Guide

Kennesaw State has more than 45,000 students, two campuses, and a job market that runs on a semester clock. That is good news if you need income between classes, and it is why the same handful of options come up every August. This guide covers what actually pays around KSU, what each option really requires, and how to fit it into a class schedule without wrecking your GPA.

Where a number is published by the university, it is quoted below. Where pay depends on the department or the app, that is said plainly instead of guessed. Always confirm the rate on the actual posting before you accept anything.

The options at a glance

On-campus jobs through Handshake

Every student assistant role, Federal Work-Study position, graduate assistantship, and internship at KSU is posted in Handshake. Sign in at kennesaw.joinhandshake.com with your KSU NetID and password. Under the Jobs tab there is a filter called Kennesaw State Collections that separates on-campus postings from the general job board, which is the single most useful thing to know about the platform.

On-campus work has one advantage nothing else on this list can match: your employer is the university, so your supervisor already knows what finals week is. Departments build schedules around class times because they have to.

Where the openings usually are

• University Dining. Student assistant pay starts at $12.75 an hour, and there is a free shift meal. Kennesaw campus locations include The Commons, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Moe's, Jamba, McAlister's, High Point Cafe, and Cinnabon. Marietta campus has Chick-fil-A, STACKS, and Stingers.

• Recreation and athletics. Front desk, intramurals, lifeguarding, and equipment checkout. Heavy evening and weekend hours, which suits a morning class schedule.

• The library and academic departments. Front desk, lab monitoring, and administrative support. These are the quietest jobs on campus and the easiest to study during, when the role allows it.

• Orientation and student affairs. Orientation leader and peer mentor roles hire in spring for the following year, so the deadline arrives long before you need the money.

• Research and lab assistant roles. Posted by individual faculty. Worth emailing a professor in your department directly, because these are often filled before they are widely seen.

Once hired, you log hours in OneUSG and get paid biweekly. KSU keeps the full hiring, pay structure, and onboarding details at studentemployment.kennesaw.edu.

The timing mistake almost everyone makes

On-campus hiring peaks in the two weeks before fall semester and again in early January. If you apply in late September, you are competing for the roles nobody took. Apply in July for fall and in November for spring. The jobs are the same, the odds are completely different.

Federal Work-Study

Federal Work-Study is a need-based program that funds part-time jobs for students who qualify. It is not a separate application in the usual sense: eligibility comes from your FAFSA. KSU's school code is 001577, and the priority deadline is March 1. Awards are generally first come, first served, so the deadline matters more than it looks.

What you have to meet

• Demonstrated financial need and a completed financial aid file.

• Enrolled at least half time: 6 credit hours for undergraduates, 5 for graduate students.

• At least a 2.0 adjusted GPA for undergraduates, 3.0 for graduate students. Some departments set the bar higher.

• Good academic standing and satisfactory academic progress.

The rules that actually affect your week

• 20 hours per week, maximum. This is a hard cap, not a guideline.

• You cannot work during scheduled class time. No exceptions, so your availability is your class schedule minus everything else.

• You cannot earn more than your award. Once you hit it, the work-study job ends unless the department hires you as a regular student assistant on its own budget.

• Unused award does not roll over. Anything left at the end of a term is voided.

Work-study pay may start at $10.00 an hour and varies by position. Check your award in Owl Express first, then apply to work-study postings in Handshake. Those postings are reviewed by the financial aid office before they go live.

Paid tutoring

Tutoring is the highest-paying option on this list that is genuinely built around a student schedule, and KSU runs several separate programs. They hire on different timelines, so it is worth knowing all of them.

Knack, for Coles College of Business courses

If you earned an A or B in any Coles College undergraduate course, you can tutor that course through Knack for $16.00 an hour. KSU pays for it, so the students you tutor are not charged. You accept only the sessions you want, in person or online. Apply at kennesaw.joinknack.com with an unofficial transcript, then complete two hours of online training, which are themselves paid.

The KSU Writing Center

Writing Assistant roles are open to undergraduate and graduate students in any discipline, not just English. You need a 3.0 GPA and at least two semesters before graduation. Applications run through Handshake, and you will need a letter of interest, an academic writing sample, and two KSU faculty references. Hiring opens after spring break for the following fall, so this one requires planning. Details are on the Writing Center site.

Engineering peer tutoring

The S-Squared Center in SPCEET hires sophomores, juniors, and seniors to tutor in the Peer Mentoring Center. You need a 3.0 overall GPA and an A or B in whatever you want to tutor. Recruiting happens by email in the second half of each semester, and they typically need help with Circuit Analysis, Statics, Dynamics, Strength of Materials, Fluid Mechanics, and Engineering Problem Solving. Course list and contact are on the SPCEET tutoring page.

Private tutoring

Outside the university, Cobb County parents hire tutors for high school math, science, standardized tests, and languages. Rates are set by you and vary widely with subject and credentials. This takes longer to build because it runs on referrals, but it is the one tutoring route where you keep the whole rate and set your own price.

Creative and social media work

Local businesses around Kennesaw, Marietta, and Acworth need photo, video, and social content, and most of them are not hiring an agency. Restaurants, gyms, salons, realtors, and small retail shops are the realistic client list. If you can shoot and edit a short vertical video, you are already ahead of most of the people they have asked.

Two practical notes. First, price per deliverable or per month, not per hour, because clients cannot judge your hours but they can judge a set of posts. Second, your first two clients are the hardest, so consider doing one at a discount specifically to get a portfolio and a reference. On campus, student media, athletics, and individual departments also hire for photography and design through Handshake.

Event and game day work

Cobb County has an unusually dense event calendar, and almost all of it needs temporary staff on nights and weekends. That is a good fit if your classes are during the day.

• KSU athletics. Fifth Third Bank Stadium and the on-campus venues need ticketing, concessions, and operations staff through the fall and winter seasons.

• Truist Park and The Battery. Braves home games and events run from spring through early fall, with concessions, retail, and guest services hiring in waves before the season.

• Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. Ushering, box office, and event support on a performance calendar.

• Catering and staffing agencies. Weddings and corporate events across Cobb. Agencies let you accept individual shifts, which is the closest thing to gig flexibility with an actual hourly rate.

Event work is seasonal by nature. Apply before the season starts, not during it, and expect the schedule to be feast or famine around holidays and home game stretches.

Delivery and rideshare

Delivery is the fastest option to start and the least predictable to rely on. Most platforms require you to be at least 18, with a valid license, insurance, and a vehicle in your name. Pay is per trip plus tips, and no platform guarantees an hourly rate.

Around Kennesaw, the useful pattern is that demand concentrates near Town Center, the Chastain Road corridor, and the Barrett Parkway restaurant cluster, and it spikes at lunch, dinner, and late night. The honest math: subtract fuel, wear on the car, and the self-employment tax you will owe, because the number the app shows you is revenue, not income. Track your mileage from day one.

Pet sitting, dog walking, and house sitting

Cobb County is heavily residential, and demand is real and repeat. Platforms like Rover and Wag handle payments and some insurance but take a cut, while neighborhood referrals pay more and require you to handle your own scheduling and trust building.

The seasonal quirk works in a student's favor: bookings peak around Thanksgiving, winter break, and spring break, which are exactly the weeks you have no classes. Overnight house sitting during those stretches pays better than almost anything else on this list per hour of actual effort.

Moving help and move-in week

KSU move-in and the surrounding apartment turnover around Chastain Road and Town Center create a short, intense window of paid work every August, with a smaller version in May. Moving help, hauling, furniture assembly, and cleanout jobs all get posted in that stretch.

It is physical, it is short term, and it pays same day more often than not. If you have a truck or an SUV and a free weekend in August, this is probably the highest hourly rate you can access with no application process.

Renting out things you already own

This is the one option where you do not trade hours for money, which is why it belongs on a student list even though it will rarely be your main income. If you already own something that sits unused most of the month, it can earn while you are in class.

What actually rents in Cobb County is narrower than most articles suggest. Cameras and creator gear book because people need them for one shoot: an Insta360 X4 is listed at $25 a day in Marietta and a Sony A6300 at $50 a day. Household items rent when someone needs them once, like a Dyson V15 Detect Vacuum at $15 a day for a move-out clean. Specialist outdoor gear commands the highest rates because owning it makes no sense for occasional use, which is why an Flite Air Pro eFoil near Lake Allatoona is $150 an hour.

For students specifically, the realistic items are a camera, a projector, a printer, a carpet cleaner, a dolly, a mini fridge in May, or a parking space on a game weekend if you live near campus. One caution: if you live in university housing or a lease that restricts subletting and commercial use, check the agreement before renting out a parking spot or a room. That rule catches people every year.

Local freelance work

If you have a skill with a deliverable, local businesses will pay for it directly and you keep the whole rate. Around Cobb the recurring needs are web updates for small businesses still running old sites, bookkeeping help for sole proprietors, translation, resume and application writing, music lessons, and basic IT setup.

Freelancing rewards proof over credentials. One finished project you can show beats a list of coursework, so build the first one for a campus organization or a family business if you have to.

Fitting work into a class schedule

The variable that actually determines whether this works is not how many hours you take, it is how those hours are shaped.

1. Build the class schedule first, then the work schedule. Stack classes into two or three days if your program allows it. Two free weekdays are worth far more than five scattered afternoon gaps.

2. Treat 15 to 20 hours as the ceiling during term. Federal Work-Study caps at 20 for a reason. Above that, grades usually pay for it.

3. Protect the two weeks before finals. Tell your supervisor at the start of the semester, not the week before. Campus employers plan for it. Gig work is the easiest to throttle down.

4. Match the job type to your commute. If you live off campus, an on-campus job you can work between classes beats a higher rate that requires a separate trip.

5. Stack a stable base with a flexible top-up. A predictable campus job for regular income, plus tutoring or gig work when you need extra, is more durable than relying entirely on either one.

Two things to sort out before your first paycheck

Taxes

On-campus and work-study jobs are regular employment: taxes come out and you get a W-2. Gig and freelance work does not withhold anything. That income is self-employment income, you may owe both income and self-employment tax on it, and platforms typically issue a 1099. Set aside a portion of every gig payment from the start and keep a mileage log. A refund you were not expecting is much better than a bill you were not expecting.

International student status

If you are on an F-1 visa this section is the most important one on the page. F-1 students are generally limited to on-campus employment of up to 20 hours per week while school is in session, and off-campus work, including app-based delivery and most freelance gigs, usually requires specific authorization such as CPT or OPT. Working without it can affect your immigration status. Do not take advice from a forum on this. Talk to KSU International Student and Scholar Services before you accept any off-campus or gig work.

Frequently asked questions

If you want to try the rental route

Most of this guide needs no product. The one section that does is renting out gear you already own, and that only works if there are people nearby actually looking for it.

OSTVA is a peer-to-peer rental and task marketplace built around Kennesaw, Marietta, and Acworth, which is why the local rates quoted above are real listings rather than national averages. You can browse what is currently listed nearby to see whether anything you own has a comparable, and local tasks if you would rather trade time than gear. ID, phone, and email verification, in-app payments, a security deposit, and reviews are live. Insurance is marked Soon and is not included today.