There are about a 1000 ways to do it. But you have to actually do it.
(I mean, if I loved marketing, I would have become a marketer).
Pair us with someone who loves marketing. S/he finds high-paying consulting jobs, I build awesome sites and/or mobile apps, and we split all the income 50%/50%, minus fees for the company.
Have some kind of rating system, where both your peers and customers rate your work. The higher that you are rated, the better marketer you can get paired with. I imagine the top marketing experts could find clients willing to pay $1000/hr rates for the top developers.
Mediocre developers are often charged out at $1000/hr rates by big name tech companies to their big name clients, who themselves sub-contracted to mid name developers under quite careful contract terms (client liability). Sub-contractors sometimes sub-contract themselves.
I'm thinking from an enterprise type technology stack: A smaller startup offering PaaS or SaaS to enterprise clients, perhaps replacing an in-house system could benefit from the indirectly acquired knowledge and expertise pool of enterprise developers, where the barriers to entry are sometimes slow and expensive.
I am not nitpicking, just sharing that what you've suggested works only for very experienced people with a big network. I am still in University.
And contrary to your belief, being in university is a great advantage. You can say you're a student doing some research/looking for help, and people are generally much more willing to help.