SYDNEY (CUP) — Sugar daddies and students seem to be coming together, according to a survey and press release from www.seekingarrangements.com. The site offers users the opportunity to meet a sugar baby or daddy, stating they provide a resourceful new way for young college students to pay back their student loans — by getting someone else to do it.
The Seeking Arrangements release says that from 1990 to the year 2017, tuition prices will have tripled with inflation, leaving students with around $38,000 in debt.
Critics are concerned that tuition has risen so high that students would rather enter into this type of relationship than face a huge debt from schooling.
“Why hope for financial aid when you can guarantee it with a Sugar Daddy?” Brandon Wade, founder and CEO of the website, said in the release. “Student loans lead to endless debt, which amounts to more than a new graduate can handle. Sugar Scholarships provide real solutions to the problem of student debts.”
The site was started by Wade to pair wealthy sugar daddies with young attractive women who need money. When faced with criticism after the UK site launch, he told press that the sugar babies were all “intelligent and goal-oriented ladies, while sugar daddies were respectful gentlemen.”
Wade markets Seeking Arrangements as a dating site. He told the Wall Street Journal, “I started the website mainly out of frustrations with online dating. I had graduated from MIT and was making six figures, but it was very poor pickings for me. I would write emails [to prospective dates] and get a one to two per cent response rate.”
Seeking Arrangements claims to be the world’s largest sugar daddy site, with over 2.7 million users signed up. Of those, 42 per cent, or about one million individuals, are seeking help with tuition. The average “allowance” of a sugar baby is around $3,000 a month, but this is not the limit.
Seeking Arrangements’ commercial states the site is open to attractive women, aged 18 or older, and if they sign up with their university email account they get a free premium membership. The site requires they provide photos, detailed profiles and “clear expectations” – that is to say, the intentions of both parties are clarified at the beginning so there is not a misunderstanding of the relationship.
The site then sets up the arrangements, which they define as, “a ‘mutually beneficial arrangement’ or a ‘mutually beneficial relationship.’”
Seeking Arrangements does not require a minimum GPA, but it does require the sugar baby be attractive and pass a background check. Despite this, there are still online warnings against sugar daddies that get their side of the bargain and run off before paying their sugar babies.
