They’re called “sugar babies” — college-aged students who offer their companionship in exchange for financial support from wealthy, older men or women—and it's increasing on Ohio University’s campus.
OU ranked 17th as “The Fastest Growing Sugar Baby School” according to the website called SeekingArrangement.com which allows people to meet, send pictures, and hammer out the details of monetary arrangements.
While it may not be one of the more traditional methods of working your way through college, SeekingArrangement has seen a large increase in its user base over the past year. On OU’s campus alone, there has been a 103 percent increase of new female users in 2012. according to a news release from the site.
However, OU is just one of four Ohio schools mentioned as having an increasing amount of female students sign up to help pay for tuition and cost of living in 2012.
Other schools from Ohio included Ohio State University (50 percent increase), Kent State University (123 percent), and Miami University (48 percent).
Despite its growing popularity, the nature of the website has given rise to fears that many of the students on the site are providing sexual services in exchange for monetary rewards—a facet the company strongly denies.
“Our website explicitly states that we don’t condone or support anything even resembling (sexual) activities,” says Leroy Velasquez, the manager of public relations for InfoStream Group. “We have a team of experts who monitor the website for activity to make sure that these profiles do not do anything resembling prostitution.”
Velasquez said the company sympathizes with its youth base, and sees the overbearing costs of college as the main reason why many are turning the site.
“The reason is a combination of things. We’re in a slowly recessive economy, and on top of that, some students aren’t as wealthy as others and look to other ways to pay for college tuition,” Velasquez said.
An average student loan costs “approximately $25,250,” and “one out of five households are in debt due to student loans,” according to the news release.
“It’s personal perspective— I think it’s a good thing that they’re being proactive in pursuing higher education,” he said.
rc677311@ohio.edu
