Some students earn extra bucks by participating in studies

Many students have taken advantage of opportunities to make some pocket money for college by serving as subjects for clinical research trials, which are sometimes found under the "ETC" jobs category on Craigslist, or college bulletin boards.

Although sleep studies that require subjects to remain at facilities for consecutive days may be counterproductive for anyone with a full load of classes, that's not the case for all studies. A 2008 blog post from J.D. Roth documents how the author earned $120 for answering questions about his finances while undergoing an MRI scan. Later in the post, a woman writes about her experience of getting paid to have her blood tested while she watched films. Studies on more general topics - like drug, alcohol and tobacco use and cessation - are more common than the latter example.

A Haverford College survey shows that when it comes to students letting themselves be guinea pigs, their payout usually reflects what they were willing to put in. For example, Haverford's findings show the average amount paid for filling out a survey is only $13. On the other hand, on-going research can pay its participants almost $445, and studies requiring subjects to handle three or more tasks simultaneously can pay an average of almost $200.

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