I Didn't Know That Students Were This Hard Up!

Saddled with piles of student debt and a job-scarce, lackluster economy, current college students and recent graduates are selling themselves to pursue a diploma or pay down their loans. An increasing number, according to the the owners of websites that broker such hook-ups, have taken to the web in search of online suitors or wealthy benefactors who, in exchange for sex, companionship, or both, might help with the bills.

The past few years have taken an especially brutal toll on the plans and expectations of 20-somethings. As unemployment rates tick steadily higher, starting salaries have plummeted. Meanwhile, according to Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a professor of psychology at Clark University, about 85 percent of the class of 2011 will likely move back in with their parents during some period of their post-college years, compared with 40 percent a decade ago.

Besides moving back home, many 20-somethings are beginning their adult lives shouldering substantial amounts of student loan debt. According to Mark Kantrowitz, who publishes the financial aid websites Fastweb.com and Finaid.org, while the average 2011 graduate finished school with about $27,200 in debt, many are straining to pay off significantly greater loans.

Enter the sugar daddy, sugar baby phenomenon. This particular dynamic preceded the economic meltdown, of course. Rich guys well past their prime have been plunking down money for thousands of years in search of a tryst or something more with women half their age -- and women, willingly or not, have made themselves available. With the whole process going digital, women passing through a system of higher education that fosters indebtedness are using the anonymity of the web to sell their wares and pay down their college loans.

"Over the past few years, the number of college students using our site has exploded," says Brandon Wade, the 41-year-old founder of Seeking Arrangement. Of the site's approximately 800,000 members, Wade estimates that 35 percent are students. "College students are one of the biggest segments of our sugar babies and the numbers are growing all the time.

Seeking Arrangement is hardly the only website with a business model that revolves around the promotion of sugar daddy and sugar baby relationships. More than half a dozen websites advertise such services.

For instance, SeekingTuition.com offers college students "who need that special education from wealthy benefactors. Find that special someone to help you with books, dorm, rent or tuition today!" Meanwhile, SugarDaddyMeet.com defines a sugar baby as an "attractive and young woman. Beautiful, intelligent, and classy college students, aspiring actresses or models."

When Barb Brents, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, conducts research in various legal brothels in the state, she finds women hailing from a variety of different backgrounds. "The women tend to be from working-class or middle-class backgrounds, but a good number are from upper-class families, too," she says. Brents often finds that women turn to sex work when, in their professional lives, they're unable to make ends meet.

On the other hand I think this is why my stock in Abilify and Repressitol is going through the roof.

Yeah... My roomies think one of the girls we lived with did this. Woman would bring home 'study partners' every few weeks and they'd study in her room with the music nice and loud.

It's not really shocking with how expensive school are in the US =/

Or the lack of realization that there are several, many, even, steps between architect and ***.

True or not, I'm totally using this quote.

Even architects have to get on their knees to build steps?

It's the sudden realizations that push people over the edge. Alot of kids go bonkers in college when they start learning that not everyone lives in cookie cutter houses in suburbs outside the city in the style of american excess they are accustomed too.

It's the sudden realizations that push people over the edge. Alot of kids go bonkers in college when they start learning that not everyone lives in cookie cutter houses in suburbs outside the city in the style of american excess they are accustomed too.

Even architects have to get on their knees to build steps?

Yeah...That's not how it works. There are contractors who hire people for that.

Everyone has a price. It just so happens college girls happen to be really affordable comparitively.

People do amateur porn to help pay for tuition. Given that, why is this so surprising?