As the cost of higher education is constantly increasing, more students are forced to find an alternative to fund their education. Apart from education loans and part time jobs, sugar daddies researchers have revealed a new set of bankable financial resources discovered by students to solve their tuition funding woes - Sex Work.

About 6 percent of the students in U.K. are engaging in part-time sex work such as pole or lap dancing, stripping, escorting or prostitution to fund their studies. Most of the students feel that this is a better option rather than discontinuing their courses or having multiple jobs. They feel that part-time jobs could ruin their professional career.

Academics from the universities of Kingston and Leeds established a link between health, sexual abuse history and financial circumstances. Researchers arrived at the conclusion based on the results of a questionnaire answered by 200 students from 29 U.K. institutions.

They also found out that the 'higher education' sector is amassing huge profits of up to $550m annually, $3.3m per institution from the sex industry.

"Objections were raised to asking questions [previously] cleared in the same institution and used in numerous previous studies by other authors. [As a result] the period of data collection was pushed back to a time when many students were unavailable through being off campus or on holiday," the authors said.

The researchers stated that they several faced difficulties while conducting the study because the institutions 'now see themselves as corporations' as revelations about student sex workers might 'not only harm their public image but affect their income from prospective 'customers.'

The authors said the figures are only a 'conservative estimate' because phone-sex workers were not included in the sample.

"While there may always have been some incidental student presence in the industry... there can be little doubt that the growing impoverishment of the student population has [coincided] with a growth in the number of student sex workers," they added.

Dr Ron Roberts, of Kingston University, the study's lead author, said that the university did not attempt to keep the students away from sex work.

'Everybody knows this goes on. They are just burying their heads in the sand. It is a student welfare issue. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that."