America's Favorite Whorehouse Just Got Even More Lucrative for Working Girls

If you've attended college in the past ten years, you've probably met a girl who has turned to sex work to pay off her student loans. 40 million Americans have student loans to pay back (the national student debt burden reached $1.2 trillion dollars last year according to analysts at Experian), and with entry level jobs paying 7.7 percent less than 2000 salaries according to the Economic Policy Institute, prostitution has become an incredible way to pay back loans. Dennis Hof—the proprietor of the Bunny Ranch, America's most popular legal brothel—recognizes this phenomenon. Starting this week, he will match any student loan payment his working girls pay over a 60-day period.

"[The Bunny Ranch is] giving back to America one sex act at a time," Hof says. "We get so many girls coming in here that need to pay off their school loans."

Hof watched the loan experience unfold first hand with his last girlfriend, Krissy Summers. According to Hof, Summers attended the University of Michigan on a cheerleading scholarship but graduated with $45,000 in debt. After graduation, she scored a job that paid $21,000 a year. She couldn't afford to pay rent or her car insurance, so she moved to the Bunny Ranch. Within her first three months of hooking, she paid off all her student loans.

Hof has seen a "huge increase" in the number of girls working at the brothels to pay off loans since 2009. This reflects a national pattern. According to Experian's study, Student debt has increased 84 percent since the recession. Graduates have struggled to make loan payments though, because entry level' wages have only declined.

"The girls don't know what to do," Hof says. "They're trying to do the right thing and pay off their school loans, but they can't because they can't get a job that will pay enough to do that."

Every year, Hof said in a press release, University of Northern Nevada's sociology class visits the Bunny Ranch. A few students always come back and apply to work at the brothel, and when Hof asks them how they learned about the job, they say, "the sociology department's field trip!" Right now, one bunny is working to pay off $106,000 in student loans. She graduated with a PhD and then briefly worked as a professor. After a few paychecks, she realized she would never pay off her loans as a professor. She's working briefly at the Bunny Ranch, and after she finishes her payments, she plans to return to academia.

"[The girls] went to school with the promise that if you get a good education and you pay an exorbitant amount of beans, then you're gonna go out and get six figure income—it's all nonsense," said. "The jobs aren't there."

Movie stars and academics may depict legal brothels as sketchy businesses, but you could argue that the Bunny Ranch is less shady than some of America's most esteemed universities. While prestigious universities like NYU continue to issue expensive loans despite their billion-dollar endowments, the Bunny Ranch has helped girls quickly pay back debt—and Hof's not just helping girls.

"The guys are even worse," Hof says, indicating that it's not just girls who seek his help with their student debt. "I get guys all the time contacting me wanting to be a tester [who visits the brothels and reviews the girls]."

Over 60 days, Hof hopes the Bunny Ranch's student debt program will help tens of graduates pay back their loans. He also believes the program will bring in new potential bunnies.

"It'll get us really good college girls," Hof says. "Maybe more cheerleaders like my ex."