Are college students more likely to listen to a lecture about education policy if an adult film actress is behind the podium? They certainly filled the room for Belle Knox, whose real name is Miriam Weeks, a 19-year-old Duke student. She came to UNC-Chapel Hill on Tuesday to talk about the high cost of college.

Knox, a sophomore women’s studies/sociology double major, has become something of a national figure, appearing on Fox News and Fox Business Network, “The View”, and “Piers Morgan Live”, and writing for Time, Jezebel, and XOJane. Knox claims to have resorted to performing in porn because of the high cost of tuition at Duke.

She said during her speech that she had to choose between taking out $240,000 in loans over four years and paying most of it out of pocket. While taking a job as a porn actress disqualified her for what aid she had been receiving, the job pays enough to cover the full cost of tuition. She told her Carolina audience, “I found that getting screwed on camera was the best way to avoid getting screwed by the education system.” She admits, however, that she was awarded a full ride at Vanderbilt and might have taken it if she had known then what she knows now.

Knox’s newfound fame after writing about her tuition troubles led to her first foray into education policy. Young Voices, a libertarian organization that seeks to get Millennials published, enabled her to publish an article in Time. Unlike her earlier articles, however, this one went in depth about how bad government policy raises tuition.

When she first garnered media buzz by writing for XOJane in February about her journey into sex work, she appeared to be on the left politically. Although the Duke University Chronicle labeled her as a Republican who identifies as a libertarian, her own writing suggested she was concerned with issues more commonly associated with progressive feminism—such as patriarchy, slut-shaming, and rape culture.

It now appears, however, that she is serious about liberty—in addition to her writings and appearances advocating free markets in education, Knox is the Duke campus coordinator for the libertarian group Students for Liberty.

Her appearance at Chapel Hill this week was put on by another libertarian student group called UNC Young Americans for Liberty, a chapter of the national organization that got its start with the 2008 presidential campaign of Republican congressman Ron Paul. While she described herself as a “sex-positive feminist activist,” that message took a backseat to her call for liberty and the need to reduce federal intervention in higher education. Still, Knox finds feminism and libertarianism to be reconcilable: “I don’t think that the state is any friend to women,” she said when questioned about it.

It was refreshing to see someone at the left-liberal Chapel Hill talk about an unusual topic—free markets—to more than 100 people, many of whom had undoubtedly been drawn there because of her notoriety as an X-rated film actress.

She spoke in a classroom in the corner of the student center on campus, with a karaoke and cupcakes event going on in the lobby downstairs. As people shuffled in, she sat quietly with UNC YAL leaders, smiling and waiting. People continued to enter throughout her speech, perhaps more interested in getting a glimpse of an adult video star than what she had to say.

Her description of the problem with college was not unlike the argument one might hear from a Pope Center speaker, with the addition of a few charming giggles here and there.

“People like me have been told our whole lives that higher education is the only way to be successful in America,” she told the crowd. Then later, “I don’t think college is for everyone and we need to stop pushing it like it is.”

Knox mentioned the Bennett hypothesis, named for former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett, that government loan subsidies drive up the price of education. Because of the inelastic demand for college, she said, “colleges can raise prices, and people will still continue to enroll and pay up.”

She continued, “It’s a bit of a circle. Education is unaffordable because of the government’s involvement, and the government’s involvement is now justified as necessary because education is now unaffordable.”

Knox recommended Khan Academy, vocational schools, for-profit schools, and apprenticeships. She said those alternatives “disrupt the inflated demand for four-year universities and offer more options for low-income students” that otherwise might go to school only to drop out or find themselves unemployable even upon graduation.

For a 19-year-old college student, despite some early nervousness, Knox looked pretty comfortable behind the podium. Career choice aside, she was among peers and she connected with them on a level most speakers could not: “I will say you guys do have cuter guys here [than at Duke],” she said after someone asked her why she did not attend the cheaper UNC.

On the other hand, while she is bright and articulate, her knowledge of the topic did not extend farther than her 15-minute speech. She stumbled in answering a couple of questions about education policy. Of course, no 19-year-old women’s studies and sociology major should normally be expected to answer such questions. She was more comfortable when audience members asked her about libertarianism. She had a fine grasp of what it means to be a libertarian, explaining that to her, libertarianism is about being free to live as one pleases as long as one does not harm others.

While the high price of college was the topic, the questioners were at least as interested in libertarianism and her porn career. And according Pope Center intern April Winters, (who was in a better position to notice than the author), there were a lot of students on their phones and more giggling than the average speaking event. Giggling aside, all the questions were respectful and most were relevant. Even the laughter was mostly had with the speaker, not at her.

Much of the negative reaction in February and March after Knox’s (preemptive) self-outing as a porn actress was because it appeared disingenuous and self-serving. She decried the double standards of the “patriarchy” and portrayed herself as a victim forced into sex work, despite the very good options we later found out she had had before taking her porn job.

But today—perhaps guided by libertarian colleagues at YAL, SFL, and Young Voices—her focus is now on explaining how all students are victims of discernible, tangible policies, instead of on her own questionable victim status. Her most well received line of the night was an unintentional double entendre: “I don’t think we should just lie down and take it anymore.”