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OnlyFans’ Kit Barrus With Math Degree Says Monthly Income Tops Tenured Professors
Kit Barrus, a former honors student in mathematics and psychology, says her earnings from OnlyFans have eclipsed the salaries of many top academic professionals in her field.
“I make more in a month than many tenured professors make in a year,” Barrus, 27, told Star. “It’s not bragging, it’s reality. I’ve seen the salary data. The math checks out.”
Barrus, who graduated magna cum laude and was raised Mormon in California, said her academic background gives her an edge in the subscription-based content market. She currently ranks in the top 0.1% of creators on the platform, based on her own analytics. Her reported income far exceeds the median annual wage for mathematicians, which was $112,110 in 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“This is not luck,” she said. “I treat it like a business. I look at churn rates, price elasticity, user behavior. It’s not random. It’s predictive modeling.”
Barrus said she began supporting herself while attending college full time and working nights. Her entry into adult content started as a dare from TikTok followers but quickly evolved into a lucrative full-time venture.
“What started as a joke turned into my full-time job,” she said. “And I’m good at it because I understand people and I understand numbers.”
She credits her success to a strategic mix of data analysis, emotional intelligence and consistent output.
“Optimization, A/B testing, subscriber segmentation — this is all data science,” Barrus said. “The only difference is my medium.”
Despite criticism from some in academic circles, Barrus said she has no regrets about stepping away from a potential career in research or teaching.
“I was never going to get a MacArthur Fellowship,” she said. “But I built a platform that values what I bring to the table. I don’t need tenure.”
Asked whether she would return to graduate school, Barrus left the door open but said there was no urgency.
“I always thought I’d be a professor,” she said. “Now I’m the case study.”
