University students having a hard time managing tuition fees and cost of living usually apply at part-time jobs to make ends meet. However, some go the other route, by finding a benefactor who would pay their tuition and other school needs.
These students are called "sugar babies" and a growing number of millennial women are signing up to become one. They make arrangements online that matches them with wealthy old men. These men give them cash and gifts in exchange for romance or sex.
San Francisco State University has at least 194 of its students engaging in such practice on a sugar baby site disguised as a dating site. The women sign up and are tagged as "baby" and members are extended free membership if they use their ".edu" email to register.
"It has a lot to do with the cost of living, which is outrageous in San Francisco and the surrounding areas," Brook Urick of Seeking Arrangment said. "Tuition rates just keep rising, scholarships become less and less available, and people have to look to alternative methods to pay for their schooling."
The situation isn't exclusive to San Francisco universities as students in Norfolk and Canada also have a growing number of sugar babies. The women averagely receive $2,500 to $3,000 a month from their sugar daddies.
Some of these men are quite respectful, according to a sugar baby named Jennifer who turned down a sexual proposal. "That kind of separates it from the whole escort business," she said.
"What's going on here is a lot different. Sometimes there isn't sex. Sometimes there isn't money," Urick explained. "Here, it's a relationship and it's a gift. The idea is that these people are generous, they're willing to spoil. They might not have time for traditional relationships, but they're willing to provide something else."
Male university students also sign up on the site to look for their sugar mommies, and as with the women, the benefactors don't get to choose their babies. It's the students who choose them and then they discuss the arrangements on chat, text or Facetime.
However, a relationship expert warns millennials this could become a difficult and dangerous situation. "Those types of power imbalances are unequal unhealthy relationships from the get-co," Haley Raimondi, an expert on domestic violence, said. "They tend to potentially become something more whether it is psychologically or physically violent or damaging."
"Aside from potential sexual assault, I think psychologically going in and into that I think it could have a lot of long lasting detrimental effects to your development of what you understand as a healthy relationship is," Raimondi added.
