Effects of the cuts - NUS: Students turning to prostitution to fund studies

that's good. family support is v important though. if only emotional to help prevent her making bad decisions, never mind a roof and a meal if necessary.

'NUS: Students turning to prostitution to fund studies'

This is a political story. The NUS are saying it and the BBC report it without giving figures for teh numbers involved.

The NUS are against cuts and student fees and say

"Greater numbers of students in England are turning to prostitution to fund their education, the National Union of Students (NUS) claims.

The NUS also says students are turning to gambling and taking part in medical experiments to fund their studies.

It says increased living costs and fees, and cuts to the education maintenance allowance, play a part."

Why don't they give us the numbers and why don't the BBC ask for the numbers before posting stories such as these? Where are their investigative journalists?

She worked during 6th form and put money away so she is living off savings. She has also had odd jobs during the term. She is frugal - she can make one shift's wages last a week.

just xmas and new year? won't keep her in funds for long. hopefully she has you to help out in jan

"but those jobs aren't there anymore."

Someone needs to tell my DD then, because she has signed up to do conference & banqueting again over Christmas and the New Year.

the ultimate in flexibility is the zero hour contract. Can't commit to it unless it's the number 1 thing in your life, no kids, no lectures, no transport issues.
you re buying into the myth that people are selfish gits with unreasonable demands of reliability to their conditions and pay. country can't afford to hire people properly, no doubt.

The jobs are there if you're flexible and not fussy .... the girl in the article complained about 'unsociable hours', said she didn't want to work in a shop and seemed to have some very fancy standards for someone with no cash. She doesn't seem to have asked the NUS or anyone else for help. I think she was rather naive, got suckered into the sex trade as 'easy money' and has come to regret it. Everyone makes mistakes.

but those jobs aren't there anymore.
if you do get a job its zero hour contract.
totally agree with the new 'acceptibility' of the sex trade. I can do long rants about why it's not such a good thing

There was a maintenance grant but it barely covered rent in my cheap, unfashionable uni town. Students in bigger, smarter cities would have really struggled. Benefit wasn't availble in 1985 and neither could you sign on in the holidays.... I know, I was that student. Working at some crappy job ... yes, even with 'unsociable hours'.... during the summer and the holidays was how most of us made up the shortfall. Almost everyone left uni in those days with a whopping great overdraft which, unlike today, had to be paid back at full market rates, on time and no deferrals... EMA wasn't even thought of.

It's not about preening about how thrifty anyone is. Just that being a student has never been a life of luxury at any time in the last fifty+ years and students have always done extra work to make up the numbers. If you want to point the finger, how about the metoric rise of lap-dancing clubs looking for staff and things like the drama series 'Diary of a Call Girl' that made sex work seem a fun, acceptable way to make a few quid?

Erm, didn't I say youth rate of NMW.
Stop emoting and start thinking.

If you google "student prostitution" and then just about any year, you will get similar stories, for example this one from 2007 and also from 2007 this one from Ireland as it's not just UK where this happens.

The underlying question has to be why the sex trade is seen as an acceptable way to earn additional income.

I know two students who have funded themselves via online gambling (blackjack and poker) with one paying for an MSc course with the proceeds.

What whatdoiknow said.

My eldest, when in 6th form and on a full timetable, worked in silver service. One cousin waited tables. Another worked in the local newsagent. None of them felt the need to turn to prostitution and none of them were too tired for the day job.

In the article the girl said she need £70 a month for travel money. Even a the youth rate of NMW that is only 19 hours, or just over 4 hours a week. That's not too hard to fit into studies. Kids have been doing Saturday jobs (so that is 8 hours a week) for years.

Nothing new indeed. They do say prostitution is the oldest profession. I do believe people experienced poverty and turned to prostition even in the golden years of the mid eighties.

Nothing new.
This type of article gets trotted out every few years. I remember reading the same sort of shock/horror story when I was at university and I graduated in 1985.

zero hour contracts are a big bugbear of mine.
being told Tuesday evening that you're scheduled for 2 hours Thurs lunchtime, that's it for the week and you'll have to miss your lab is ridiculous.

"the article gave the example of a girl who had lost her EMA following the cuts, and as a result could not afford to pay for her studies NOW."

The article quotes her as saying "I didn't know who I could go to in college, and I didn't want to rely on my family." So (a) she didn't know how to use the College support systems and (b) refused to ask her family, which is a whole different matter.
I hate articles like this where they put forward a sob-story and expect us to do a kneejerk empathy for the sobee. I can usually think of a million other things that they could have done to improve their lot.

I read this and wasn't surprised. I had three paying part-time jobs at uni (including things like campus guide, which only applied every couple of months) and was the only person I know to graduate not in my overdraft.

Now times are more difficult and people are offering themselves for unpaid work experience (a fellow PG student offered, in an interview for a position I went for as well, to work for the company unpaid over the summer if they couldn't offer him the job - needless to say I couldn't afford to do this, he had the work experience and they didn't hire anyone when maybe a few years ago they would have paid someone to do that experience) it means there are far fewer options available.

TBH, I know that I don't have to pay my loan back until I earn above the threshold but if I were looking at the level of debt current students are then I'd be trying to make as much as I could to pay it off quickly - a debt is a debt and it makes you worry whether or not you 'have' to pay it back now. It is a huge sum hanging over your head and affecting how much you can pay in rent, whether you can afford children or any other number of life expenses - one of my friends was counting on her redundancy money to pay for extended maternity leave for her first baby until the SLC deducted the lump sum as though she was a higher rate tax payer (despite it being marked as redundancy and her having years of low-paid work with that company on their records) and refused to allow her to claim some back. It's that kind of attitude from the Student Loans Company that makes students panic about repayments.

Here's a very similar story from 2010

It says that the numbers have been increasing for 10 years, so there is more to this than The Cuts I think.

How many students were involved in the study I wonder?

And I did read the article. She had choices but opted to turn them down for stupid reasons. 'Unsociable hours'? FFS.