Hooking for higher learning

First, in Germany, France and Ukraine, prostitution is legal so it kind of changes the titillating dynamic of the story. Still, researchers had no idea so many would students would be willing to turn tricks or the number of students who already had.

One in three university students in Berlin would actually consider sex work as a way to supplement their educational finances. This is slightly higher than in Paris where about 29.2% of the students said they would do it and in Kiev it was 18.5%. Those three cities comprised the research.

Four percent of the students in Berlin have already used the sex industry to supplement their income. Sex industry here means prostitution, erotic dancing and internet webcasting.

The results surprised the researchers who said they started the research as a way of either proving or disproving the rumors often heard about college students paying for their education with sex. They wanted to know how this information might fit in with education policies in the different countries.

“The main motivation of the students to turn to prostitution were the financial incentives, namely the high hourly wages,” Eva Blumenschein, one of the authors and a 26 year old student at Berlin’s Humboldt University. It is not known how she supplements her educational costs.

Educational costs have skyrocketed and the policies in many European countries have moved to fast track students into earlier graduation. This may have played a role in pushing the students toward more untraditional ways of supporting themselves.

Thirty percent of students who were sex working were in debt.

Source: Reuters