Spike in college students launching OnlyFans to earn cash on campus

As college students are headed back to school this fall, a trend has been popping up with more and more students looking to make some extra cash using OnlyFans. The platform allows for users to create adult content and then have people pay a subscription fee to see it. 

The platform has increasingly been a way that college students are earning extra money as they are in school. More and more people aren't getting married," Rock Jacobs told Fox News. Jacobs is the director for a documentary about how OnlyFans is sweeping across college campuses, called "Lonely Fans." 

"More and more people aren’t having kids, and more and more people want to cut the line. And since the pandemic, there was this explosion of OnlyFans. The amount of money they're making is more than Google, more than Intel, more than the NBA," Jacobs added.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been increasing traffic to the pornography subscription site while those using the platform are selling off adult content in exchange for a quick buck. The site had only 350,000 people creating adult content on the site. However, that number has skyrocketed to 4.1 million in 2023. 

"It's a payroll system," Jacobs added in his comments. "And what [creators] have been able to do is use sex to prey on lonely people, and because of technology anybody can have a payroll."

The average cost of going to college in 2025 is around $38,270 per year to attend, according to the Education Data Initiative. Some college students spend as much as $500,000 on a bachelor's degree.

Jacobs added that with the adult content, those getting paid can make money very easily. "There's some people that really need money," Jacobs said. "And this is such an easy way to do it. It comes quick, and you know [that] you will make money." However, by creating adult content, students are at risk of putting career prospects in jeopardy, as well as hurting their own reputation. Although Jacobs pointed out that having an OnlyFans has become normalized in the culture. 

"I think it’s become normalized," Jacobs said. "I’ve been working on [the film] since 2023, and at the beginning, I didn't think it was something that people were trying to hide. Now it’s something that people are proud about."

He later added that he has overheard high school girls expressing interest in making a career out of selling their body online with OnlyFans while he was at a protest in California. "There were girls coming out of the high school that said, ‘Oh, what's wrong with OnlyFans? We're going to do that as soon as we turn 18,’" Jacobs added. "It has turned itself into being something that people want to do right out of school instead of picking a real career."