In just a decade, Donald Trump lost more than a billion dollars. More specifically, between 1985 and 1994, he racked up $1.17 billion in business losses, according to a new blockbuster story from The New York Times, based on tax information from those years. It's hard to imagine an individual losing that much alone, and the Times gives some helpful context:

In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991—more than $250 million each year—were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years.

In America, it's quite expensive to be poor: car insurance is pricier in poorer neighborhoods; overdraft charges subsidize the rich by penalizing the poor; and it's harder to buy groceries and supplies in bulk at cheaper prices if you don't have the money up front. For many less wealthy Americans, debt can be catastrophic. Debt collectors can garnish wages or claim IRS refunds or reclaim a car (which someone might need to get to a job).

Not so for Trump, who inherited millions thanks to tax evasion and his father, Fred, and then proceeded to lose much of it and accumulate a jaw-dropping mountain of debt through a long series of bad business decisions, like dumping huge amounts of money into a shuttle business and a failing casino, all the while living in a literal gilded palace and promoting The Art of the Deal. The guy might have been America's worst businessman, but he's certainly the country's greatest living con artist.

It all begs the question of what that kind of money could do for the ordinary Americans who don't get breaks through real estate tax structures, inherited wealth, and the unearned faith of investors and banks. Here's what $1.17 billion—not adjusted for inflation—could roughly pay for these days.

You can wipe out 30,000 borrowers' student loan debt

The average student borrower is carrying $37,172 in debt, with rates as high as 6 percent in some cases. That $1.17 billion would wipe out the debt for about 31,500 people, taking a small dent out of the total 45 million borrowers.

You can buy textbooks for 195,000 college students for four years

In 2014, students spent as much as $1,500 each on college textbooks. That's the high end of the range, but at that cost, $1.17 billion would cover four years of college for nearly 200,000 students.

You could wipe out lunch debt for 468,000 schools

School lunch debt is a rapidly growing problem for primary and secondary students who don't qualify for free lunch. The average school now has a total of $2,500 that students need to pay off, and the equal of Trump's net loss could erase that for almost half a million schools.

You could employ 2,000 new teachers in Indiana for a decade

Indiana is one of a handful of states struggling with massive teacher shortages. The average public teacher salary is $55,000 a year, meaning $1.17 billion could cover the salaries for 2,127 new teachers for a decade.

You could provide housing for 900,000 homeless people for a year

Permanent supportive housing for one homeless person costs $1,300 annually, which is actually lower than the annual cost of services someone needs when they don't have a home. So paying $1 billion a year to keep 900,000 people from being homeless is still less expensive than refusing to help them at all.

You could buy insulin for 200,000 people for a year

The cost of insulin has been skyrocketing in recent years, with annual costs climbing as high as $5,705 annually per person. Even covering as much as one year would allow 205,083 people access to a drug they need daily to survive.

You could purchase 2,925,000,000 diapers

In the first year of its life, a baby goes through an average of 2,500 diapers, at a cost of about $1,000 per year. So 1,170,000 babies could have diapers completely supplied up until their first birthday.

You could open three new public hospitals in Washington, D.C.

Right now Washington, D.C., has a single public nonprofit hospital, and it's in pretty dire financial condition. Plans are under way for one more that's expected to cost $325 million to build. A budget of $1.17 billion could fund that one, plus two more, with $195 million left over.

You could employ 585 doctors in rural Alabama for a decade

Alabama is one of a handful of states with a perilous shortage of rural doctors, meaning anyone who needs basic health care and doesn't already live in a city has a long commute ahead of them. The average salary for doctors in Alabama is $200,000 per year. For a decade, 585 new doctors could have their salaries fully paid for.

You could employ 2,000 public defenders in Louisiana for a decade

The state of Louisiana has about 360 full-time public defenders, which is one-fifth of how many there need to be to adequately handle all the cases in the state with the highest incarceration rate in the world. If you round that up to an even 2,000 full-time public defenders, $1.17 billion would fund their salaries at $58,500 a year (which is $18,000 more than public defenders make in New Orleans now) for 10 years.

You could fix 1/19th of the New York City subway

The New York City subway system is in obviously bad straits, and getting the whole thing running as it should would take an estimated $19 billion. Trump's net loss would take a good chunk out of it.