Some Students Turn To Prostitution To Pay Off Debt

The amount of debt students are carrying is reaching a critical point—$1.19 trillion.
“Policymakers fear that rising indebtedness threatens future economic growth,” the Huffington Post notes, “especially since so many young Americans toiled for credentials that aren’t valued by employers.”
While company-provided tuition assistance is nothing new, some unconventional companies, like Starbucks and McDonalds, are beginning to find that assisting employees with their tuition is a good way to recruit and retain good employees.
Other companies, however, are finding that helping employees to pay off their debt can be a way to attract good talent.
In fact, it appears that the student-debt crisis has become so profound, according to MarketWatch, that some students are even turning to the world’s oldest profession to help pay off their debt.

“What I see is America ripping off college kids,” said Dennis Hof, the owner of the Carson City, Nev.-based Moonlite Bunny Ranch, said in an interview. “It’s a huge rip off. The dream of get your education, do what you have to do, pay all this money and get out and get a six figure job, that’s over, that’s not happening.”

In response, Hof, who also starred in the HBO series “Cathouse,” said he’s decided to help his employees pay off some of their student loans. Ever since the Great Recession, Hof said he’s seen woman after woman walk through his doors looking for a job that will help them make a dent in their student loans. He decided to give them a leg up. During the first 60 days that a woman works at the company, she can have whatever portion of her take-home pay she wants dedicated to her student loans matched by Hof. So for example, if a woman brings earns a total of $25,000 in take-home pay during those 60 days and decides to put $10,000 of it towards her student loans, the company will match that.

While the Bunny Ranch’s matching plan may be more economically enriching than what other companies are currently offering, it is a symbol of the desperation that many students have reached regarding their student debt.
Further, it also shows a real need for companies to realize the opportunities that exist to offer programs for students to help pay down (or pay off) their student debt in exchange for finding good employees.
As MarketWatch concludes:

Given the sobering statistics on student debt, it’s no surprise workers are drawn to a company that will help them with their student loans. With one in four borrowers in default or struggling to pay off their loans, more are clamoring for ways to pay it off. One in nine student loan borrowers said they’d go so far as to eat a tarantula to get rid of their debt and some young women turn to websites that will match them with older, wealthier men to help make a dent in their student loans.

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