Making money through online education is difficult because you have no direct contact with the students who take online courses. You have to be creative and figure out what they are going to search online for. If you can figure out what they are going to be looking online for then you will be able to market to them and make some money off of the people taking online education courses and classes.
Sell pod cast lessons
Create lessons in the subjects that you are strong in and then sell them as downloadable lessons that students pay for. That way they will be able to learn whilst they are walking their dog or driving in their car.
Buy and sell second hand textbooks
Some companies do quite well through buying textbooks and then lending them to students, instead of the student having to buy the books themselves. You could try this, or you could simply instigate a buy and sell website. A student may buy a new or second hand book from you. They may also sell their books to you too. This is a nice way of making some profit off of an item that both online and offline students will need.
Sell tutorial videos
In a similar vein to the pod casts, you may sell tutorial videos. These should be videos on your specialist subject. You create online videos and the students can use them to learn, in conjunction with the course that they have taken online. You can cover some areas in more detail, so that the student will get extra credit.
Sell proofreading services
Many students do essays but are not very good at proofreading their work. For this reason there are lots of online and offline students who could really use a good proofreader. You can sell the service based upon the fact that not all students are expected to have an English degree, and yet students with the best grammar, spelling, syntax, structure, get the best scores.
Set up a paid question and answer website
This can be set up a little like Yahoo answers, except that the student has to pay you for your answer. They ask a question and you give them a quote. The quote depends upon how comprehensive and concise your answer is. If you only have one specialist subject then you may offer that category only–within your website. This will also attract offline students too as they look for answers to their homework and essay questions.
You could even take on additional staff to help you with other subjects, or you could look at each question as it comes in and then research the answer. You can make money by this if you tell the student how much the answer will be before you give it to them.
Interested in taking Online Courses to further your career?