University students undergoing financial crisis are approaching sugar daddies and mummies to solve their college tuition woes. This is considered to be better option as discontinuing courses or having multiple jobs may affect their respective professional careers.
The number of university students who have joined the international sugar daddy dating site - SeekingArrangements.com has increased by 154 percent. Americans comprise the highest percentage of members apart from Australia, Europe, Southeast Asia and India.
According to the New York Post, around 300 young women from NYU have registered with the website "for a mutually beneficial" relationship. The site also includes girls from Columbia, Cornell and Syracuse universities.
"I'll admit that I've thought about doing something like that," a Columbia junior, Karen, said."It would be easier in some ways than working, taking classes and then spending years paying back loans," New York Post reports.
A Pew Research Center study in September found that one out of five (19 percent) of the nation's households owed student debt - a significant rise from 15 percent in 2007.
Alex Cranshaw, a 22-year-old NYU graduate of last year, said that three of his female classmates had sugar daddies. For one of his female classmate, a benefactor financed a whole semester in Madrid. "He funded her tuition, paid for her housing, gave her spending money and paid for her airfare," Cranshaw said."She told her parents she got a scholarship. They had no idea."
Jennifer Gwynn, the site's spokeswoman, said that an average university "sugar baby" receives about $3,000 a month in allowances and gifts from her sugar daddy, enough to cover tuition and living expenses at most institutions. For costlier institutions or localities like New York City, NYU or Columbia University, sugar babies can get up to $4,000 a month.
"I can understand why someone would be desperate enough to do it," Abby Kron, a19-year-old NYU student studying communications, said. "But I don't support it."
A 20-year-old NYU theatre major, Ashley Thaxton, said that effective financial aid are required "if those are the lengths people are going to pay for school."
The website features "sugar mummies" as well.
