As the cost to attend universities rises, more and more college students turn to sex work to pay the exorbitant price to get an education and avoid graduating drowning in debt. What’s worse is, the institutions have ignored the issue.

According to a report from this site, experts, as well as students, believe that colleges are “burying their heads in the sand” when it comes to how widespread the situation is, especially since so much of it happens online through webcams and apps. As many as 10 percent of young people seeking a degree have turned to this type of job to pay. However, instead of attempting to provide support, in some cases, universities actually block groups that try to help students who’ve turned to prostitution to pay for college. In some instances, the institutions even threaten to take action against students working in this manner because of the moral …

Stories about women seeking richer, older men to pay their university tuition in exchange for sex are becoming more and more common. From the United States to the U.K., “sugar daddies” and “sugar babies” are becoming a reasonable option for women looking not only to exercise control over their own bodies, but also to fund ridiculously high educational costs with the money of people who can afford to help.

I’ve dipped my toe into the sex-for-money pool before, and I made enough money in four hours to pay my entire month’s rent, which typically takes me over 80 hours at my regular minimum-wage retail job. But I wouldn’t do it again.

It started when I found out about websites like WhatsYourPrice.com and SeekingArrangements.com through a friend who’d had a successful experience with a “sugar daddy” arrangement. These sites connect young women with mostly older, rich men who will …

College students who find themselves drowning in hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans are using an unconventional way to make money and pay off their debt. They’re targeting sugar daddies who will pay down their college loans in exchange for sex.

Would you trade sex for money to pay off your college loan debt?

If that sounds too shocking to be true, it isn’t. According to the research, college students are seeking sugar daddies who will hand over the big bucks that students and grads are using to pay off their enormous student loans.

Take, for example, “Ashley,” a 22-year-old student whom we meet as she’s “bracing herself to endure an afternoon of sex with someone she suspected was actually about 30 years her senior.” Saddled with $15,000 in loan debt and past-due bills, Ashley discovered StudentHelp.com, a website devoted to matching college students in financial need and …

Sex work in America, where much of it is criminalized and nearly all of it is stigmatized, can be hard to truly wrap our minds around. It’s something that I’ve only recently started thinking more in-depth about, but as part of the mission to talk about the diversity of financial experience, it’s part of the story, even if it’s a story not all of us understand or empathize with. When you’re young, things tend to seem black and white. However, as you get older, you come to appreciate a fuller and more complete picture of the hows and whys of the decisions people make.

I’ll be the first to admit that I knew precious little about the world of using sex work to pay college tuition, or to help pay off student debt. According to the data, more students than you might realize are using sex work to pay for …