Given the current employment crisis many graduates come out of uni feeling that their degree was a little pointless - feeling down, dejected, and doubting whether they'll ever pay off their student loans.

Luckily not everybody thinks that way. There’s a fair few plucky Richard Branson and Lord Sugar wannabes out there, bucking the trend and racking up the cash.

With self-employed university leavers jumping up 46% in the past 6 years, Dragon’s Den has a lot to answer for. But if they’re not getting it off Theo & co. how on earth are these whizz kids doing it?

1.Sex, drugs and egg spring rolls

Yummy! Ever come back from a night out craving a kebab, but unable to find anywhere to get one? In 2006 Joshua Magidson of Nottingham University decided to create an online directory for just this occasion.

eatstudent.co.uk started as a pocket-money earner until its clever marketing campaigns and slogans (see above!) attracted the attention of online ordering company JustEat. With more than 300 restaurants and 15 UK universities in his database, working nights and weekends seems to have paid off!

2.The next... Simon Cowell

Ealing College (almost) drop out Jamal Edwards started SBTV, an online broadcaster of music promos, video interviews and impromptu live performances when he was 16 after receiving a video camera for Christmas.

The channel, which makes money from advertising, has racked up 50,000 subscribers and a total of 39 million video views. Filming the likes of Ellie Goulding, Nicki Minaj, Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber; last month he signed a deal with Sony RCA to create his own imprint within the label.

Oh, and he’s hung out with Simon Cowell. Will we be seeing a new media tyrant taking over prime-time Saturday night...hopefully he won’t be copying the high-waisted jeans/plastic hair look!

3.Consultancy King

Oxford University graduate James Moseley set up his one-man consultancy business which enables companies to measure the performance of their brand. Sounds pretty dry?

A net profit of £30,000 in two years doesn’t though! Unfortunately he got a 2.2 degree instead of the 2.1 required by his conditional job offer from PwC. But they offered him a place based on his experience anyway! Who needs uni?

4.The next... England manager

Post-World Cup, Gérard Jones, then 20, was given odds of 1,000/1 to replace Fabio Capello. Now 21, the Hull University student started off by founding the Gérard School of Football.

Teaching more than 4,000 in its first year it turned him into a local hero and, after rejecting the advances of Man U, got him spotted by Arsenal’s soccer schools.

After his own career finished at 19 when "I had my contract ripped up in my face, actually ripped. I didn't have a pot to piss in" he’s now the youngest director of football in Arsenal's soccer schools' history.

Unfortunately he keeps mum about his dealings with Arsène Wenger ("a quiet man") and refuses to disclose what he earns. But we’re talking premier league football here. ‘nuf said.

5.Taxi please

Bristol student, Nicko Williamson drafted his business model whilst writing his dissertation on American slavery. "I'd be in the British Library and when I was bored of case studies of another slave, I'd do a bit on Climate Cars."

His carbon neutral cab company now employs 14 full-time staff, runs a fleet of 70 cars and has a £2.4m annual turnover, generating £1.6m in profit. Not bad seeing as it was only launched in 2007.

6.We’re jammin’

Fraser Doherty won the 2009 Global Student Entrepreneur Awards for his highly innovative set of recipes for manufacturing jams entirely from nutritional fruit and fruit juice.

The accountancy student from The University of Strathclyde developed the recipes in his gap year and, before 18 months were up, Waitrose had him supplying their 184 stores with his ‘SuperJam’. His list of contractors also includes supermarket giant Tesco.

7.Old head on young shoulders

Young entrepreneur Dan Anahory, who has just finished studying for his A-levels, has made over £500,000 running his online companies – including a juice business in Thailand and a mattress business.

Talking about juggling work with play he says: ‘When I was 16, I was naive and just thought I would run the businesses like a young Alan Sugar...But at the end of the day, life is to be enjoyed. I don’t want to be the richest man in the graveyard.”

Anyone feeling a bit old?

8.Sell your body

Let’s have less unnervingly wise young ‘uns and more student-y-ness. Featured on our very own studentbeans.com Ross Harper and Ed Moyse have been selling their faces as advertising space.

Making up to £400 per day since they set up Buy My Face in October 2011, they’ve bagged over £30,000 painting themselves with anything from birthday greetings to company slogans.

Tags: Earn cash , Earn money