The revelation of Duke University’s freshman porn star, whose chosen name is Belle Knox, shocked the nation with a scandalous tale of a female student paying for her tuition by working in the porn industry. It is not that she was remarkably public with her quirky, sexual lifestyle that shocked the public, but instead the price of the higher-education she was struggling to pay for.
In her interview with Piers Morgan, Knox revealed the cost of attendance for the 2013-2014 year at Duke University, including fees for tuition, room, board, books and personal expenses, is an estimated $61,404. Tuition alone is estimated to cost a little over $45,000 and Knox is not alone in her struggle with absurdly high fees. Students across the nation are under an immense amount of stress concerning payment of student debts. Currently more than 40million Americans struggle with student debt. Students in the United States are more than $1.2 trillion in debt, making it nearly impossible for college graduates to start careers without financial burden. In further support of Knox’s argument against student loans being a suitable option, thousands of students are unable to repay their loans.
According to a study by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, an increasing number of students consider finances when deciding what school to attend.
While 75.5 percent of students analyzed were admitted into their first-choice school, only 56.9 percent enrolled, opting in favor of institutions that offered better financial aid packages or simply cost less. In fact, 45.9 percent of students said cost was a “very important” factor, up 14.9 percentage points over the last decade.
The Obama Administration made new moves on Friday and proposed “gainful employment” policies to hold for-profit colleges and other career training programs responsible for producing graduates able to earn enough money to pay back student loans. The regulations are intended to protect students from accumulating great amounts of student-loan debt that they will be unable to repay after graduation. If finalized, the regulations would take effect in 2016.
It is unlikely that these proposed changes will make a significant difference to Knox. She is a determined young woman who knows what she wants and how she is going to get it. To avoid devoting a great deal of her post-graduate years to repaying debt, Knox has found an alternative to loans. Knox resorted to working in the porn industry as a way of paying for an education at a prestigious school. According to Knox, a job as a sex worker is considerably profitable. The Duke student claims to earn $1,000 per scene, making her decision to be a sex worker somewhat plausible. Despite the ethical controversy of filming porn to pay the bills, one thing is for certain: It pays better than waitressing. The average waiter or waitress earns a median wage of $8.92 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about $357 per week, before taxes and assuming a 40-hour work week.
Knox is not the only female using her body as a way to finance her postsecondary education. In 2008, a 22-year-old women’s studies major, under the assumed name of Natalie Dylan, publicized that she would sell her virginity to finance her college studies. Bids soared as high as $3.8 million. Two years later, an anonymous 19-year-old university student in New Zealand’s Northland region followed the trend and accepted a bid that placed a $32,000 price tag on her virginity to raise tuition money for school.
In each case, these young women seem desperately in pursuit of any means possible to pay for college and support their futures. Although people may disagree on the methods these young women go about paying for their education, it is admirable how bold and determined they are in their pursuits to tackle the crippling debt of being a student.