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Paid Off: New game show helps college grads pay off their student loans

Host Michael Torpey tests three contestants on what they know in this quirky, reality program.
Credit: Thinkstock
Graduation mortar board cap on one hundred dollar bills concept for the cost of a college and university education

Who wants to be a millionaire? Or who just wants to get out of debt?

Paid Off is the new trivia game show on truTV that gives college graduates the chance to pay off some of their student loans.

The show's host is comedian Michael Torpey, known from his role as Corrections Officer Thomas Humphrey on the Netflix original Orange is the New Black.

Participants go through rapid fire questions collecting money to chip away at their student loans with every question they get right. Everybody gets a chance to pay off their student loans, but nobody leaves the show empty handed.

The remaining contestants leave the show with a rounded-up amount of what they won and were even directed to a “Direct to Congress Telephone.”

“Call them up right now and tell them what they need to be doing differently about this situation,” said host Torpey after a participant was eliminated.

The new game show shines a light on the reality many young Americans face as they leave college with large amounts of student debt and struggle to find adequate work to pay it off.

The average tab at a four-year in-state public college rose 3.1 percent to $20,770, and the cost at a private institution jumped 3.5 percent to $46,950, according to a USA TODAY article.

“If you’re just tuning in, yeah, this is real life in America,” said Torpey during the show’s first episode.

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