UF has ranked among the fastest growing schools for students with sugar babies.
Seeking Arrangement, an alternative dating website, ranked UF 48th on the list of the fastest growing sugar baby schools of 2016. Sugar babies are students who receive financial assistance, such as tuition, for giving another companionship.
Angela Bermudo, a spokesperson for Seeking Arrangement, said she thinks more students are becoming sugar babies because of increased tuition rates.
“Students are seeing this as an alternative option of taking out loans,” Bermudo said. “It’s also an alternative way of dating.”
In 2015, 45 students from UF signed up for premium memberships on Seeking Arrangements, an 11.58 percent increase from 2014. In total, 435 UF students are registered on the website, she said.
In 2010, the website began offering free memberships to students who used their college email address, Bermudo said. Before, members paid $20. After making it free, the membership rate increased by a magnitude of 12.
Bermudo said the website operates like any other dating website.
The sugar babies and their sponsors come to an agreement on how they want the releationship structured and how much money the student will be paid, Bermudo said.
The average sugar baby makes $3,000 a month, she said. But Bermudo said there are other benefits to these relationships, like networking and mentorship.
Iara Dircie, a UF political science freshman, said she worries this program would limit a student’s freedom.
“I don’t think that the student should feel obligated to do anything for money,” the 18-year-old said. “I don’t want to feel like I owe someone something.”
Contact Meryl Kornfield at mkornfield@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter @merylkornfield.
