Students at Cambridge University are working as prostitutes, strippers and escorts to earn extra money, it has been claimed.

Cambridge University students 'work as call girls'
Cambridge ranks among the world's most prestigious universities

Some female students are working as call girls and lapdancers, while several hundred students or former students are said to be signed up to a single escort agency.

One student is reported to have been a ?50-an-hour prostitute in the city who slept with between 40 and 50 men in a two month period during her first year at the prestigous university.

She told a university newspaper she had met other students doing the same.

The unnamed student, who has since given up the work, said she started out of "curiosity" and because another job was not paying enough. She said: "I met other students who did it too. Once you've done it, it is tempting. If you need quick easy money, it's there."

She added: "Clients did like the fact that I was a Cambridge student and so did the agency.

"They liked having a classier girl there ? it was good for business."

She added: "In the end I left of my own accord. I just didn't fancy doing it anymore. It did affect my studies, but it was good while it lasted."

Another university student said she had worked as a lapdancer at weekends, travelling to a northern city and earning hundreds of pounds a night. She told the Varsity newspaper: "I started just after I split up with my boyfriend. I wanted to do something that would piss him off."

Though describing the work as "degrading", she said she sometimes earned up to ?300 per night.

She added: "The only reason I dance now is for the money, it is such easy cash in hand. I have a boyfriend, who would like me to stop, but I'm not going to stack shelves in Morrison's for ?5.50 an hour, when I could do this."

An online website specialising in escort services from Oxbridge and 'Ivy League' students claims to have nearly 350 current or former students from the university on its books.

However, despite some charging hundreds of pounds, the site insists it offers strictly a dinnerdate service and all those registered must agree not to solicit for sex.

Last night, none of the local escort agencies around Cambridge contacted by the Daily Telegraph said they had students working for them.

One escort agency manager said: "We don't know what these people do during the day though and we don't ask. I can imagine students may want to earn money or pay off debts like anyone else."

Dr Rob Wallach, Secretary of the Senior Tutors' Committee, said: "There should be no reason that students should find themselves in such severe financial difficulty that they would have to resort to prostitution.

"However the University and Colleges are aware that students can find themselves in financial difficulty and give support where they can.

"We have no way of knowing whether the claim made in the Varsity article is in fact true. We are most concerned by the report and College Senior Tutors would do everything they could to give support to students well before any found themselves in such a situation."

Gemma Tumelty, the president of the National Union of Students, said "we have not got any evidence at all to suggest that stripping, prostitution, or escort work is in any way widespread among students. They are far more likely to work in bars or the Students Union."


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