An increasing number of students are finding employment as dancers in the city's pole-dancing and lap-dancing clubs in an effort to make ends meet.

A student who works in the clubs claims that she can £500 for two nights dancing, she says: "I earn more in one night than the average person in a week."

Watch the report about the pole-dancing explosion, from on Inside Out (BBC ONE, Monday 20/1/03)

Another student, Candy, says: "I am not embarassed. I don't think I do anything wrong.

"People pay to look at me, people don't touch me I am not selling my body."

Kine a Norwegian student studying fashion design at Leeds College of Art says:

"I work when I want to, if I want to I can quit - it's not like anyone is pushing me at all."

Real risk
However the Womens' Officer at Leeds University, Lucy MacNab, says: "Nobody should have to take off their clothes in order to get an education.

"There is a real risk of being driven to it through fears of getting into debt."

A dancer counters that claim, saying that only one group are being exploited - the men in the audience.

"The only people being exploited are the men that come in and pay £10 for three minutes. It's a waste of money - get a life."