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What's a good option for passive income for a college student?
There's no such thing as true "passive income." You are being paid the risk free rate to delay consumption (i.e., the super low rate you are getting on savings accounts and CDs) and a higher rate to bear risk. You will not find truly risk-free investments that earn more than the types of investments you have been looking at...most likely you will not keep up with inflation in risk-free investments. For a person who is very risk averse but wants to make a little more money than the risk-free rate, the solution is not to invest completely in slightly risky things.  Instead the best thing you can do is invest partially in a fully diversified portfolio.  A diversified portfolio (containing stocks, bonds, etc) will earn you the most return for the given amount of risk.  If you want very little risk, put very little in that portfolio and keep the rest in your CDs. Put 90% of your money in a CD or something and the other 10% in stocks/bonds.  Or choose a different percentage. You can also buy real assets, like real estate, but you will find yourself taking a different type of risk and doing a different type of work with those assets.