Smash hit

Catherine, who earns around £900 a week, for two nights work, said students are often sought after by escort agencies who can charge clients up to £500 an hour for a “classy, intelligent girl”.

Catherine’s website, which is typical of many escort agencies, features profiles of 25 sex workers, seven of whom identified themselves as students.

Cari Mitchell, a spokeswoman for The English Collective of Prostitutes, said since the Labour government introduced loans as a substitute for grants a decade ago, many more young men and women have approached the Collective for information, advice and support.

In some cases, female students give up their degrees to become sex workers permanently, according to Mitchell. “Women graduates find it very hard to find a well paid job and know when they leave university they're going to be paid a low wage,” she said, “In some cases it has become a reality that they stop their course and decide to work in the sex industry full time instead.”

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The annual Hay Group report, which correlates data from both the public and private employment sectors, revealed the average starting salary for a graduate in 2007 was just £20,812 per anum. Could this lack of earning power and the allure of a higher income attract some students to the sex industry more permanently?

The Sun newspaper’s Page 3 Idol competition rewards the winner with a lucrative glamour modeling contract plus a cash prize of £5,000. It is now in its sixth series and has so far been won four times by young students.

Aspiring glamour model, Rachel, initially ventured into the sex industry as a lap-dancer in order to pay her way through university. Broke and struggling to cope with her evening and weekend jobs, she only started stripping as a temporary measure.

However two years later, after realising she could earn more than £50,000 per year, she dropped out of her media degree to dance full time. She now hopes to move into the “less extreme” world of glamour modelling and to return to her studies at some point in the future.

“I started lap dancing so I could complete my degree. It had got to the point I was so poor it was either that or drop out. But the problem with the sex industry is it sucks you in,” she said, “It’s not like the real working world and you quickly get used to the money and lose a lot of confidence in your other abilities. I’m hoping to complete my degree in a year or so now but I really regret my decision to start lap dancing in the first place. But for me, like lots of students out there, I didn’t really have a choice.”

Some names have been changed.

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