Tuition, living expenses, food, it all adds up; and across the nation a portion of college students are turning to “sugar daddies” to help pay for the cost of college.
I can admit, it’s a struggle to pay for everything. Luckily, there are many ways for college students to supplement their income.
Anna Magee/ Equinox Staff
You can do freelance writing for blogs or newsletters, fill out a ton of surveys and get paid, receive vouchers for places like Amazon and other retailers or find a sugar daddy and have him pay for everything.
A sugar daddy is usually a wealthy, older man who gives money or gifts or other financial exchanges for a woman’s companionship.
According to both Business Insider and Inside Higher Ed, an increasing number of students are becoming involved with sugar daddies to help pay.
According to a study done by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Higher Education Research Institute, about 60 percent of college first-years are largely concerned about how to finance their education.
Paying for college can be a difficult, seemingly impossible feat, especially when students are trying to balance classes and work, sometimes at multiple jobs.
Even I, myself, am working three jobs while not only trying to figure out how to handle tuition payments and loans, but also having to pay rent, utility bills and buy groceries.
A student with a sugar daddy, also known as a sugar baby, might not have to worry about paying for any of those.
In Inside Higher Ed’s publication, Students With Sugar Daddies, they bring up a case from Coastal Carolina University (CCU), where every member of the cheerleading team was suspended for allegedly participating in an escort service through a website called Seeking Arrangement.
The girls would be paid $100 or more for each meeting and were also given expensive gifts.
An anonymous person tipped-off the college by writing a letter and alleging the girls of partaking in prostitution.
Although the girls said that they did not have sex with the men they met with, many people still hold onto a stigma, thinking that those who become a sugar baby, become a prostitute.
Despite that stigma, the number of college students becoming sugar babies is rising.
Seeking Arrangement has an entire branch dedicated to students, called Sugar Baby University.
The Sugar Baby University home page includes a “debt clock” showing how rapidly student debt is growing and a video of sugar babies talking about how meeting a sugar daddy made their debt disappear.
It also said that this year marks a ten-year high, with 1.2 million students registered.
Sugar Baby University reported a list of 2017’s fastest growing sugar baby schools, the top three were Temple University (TU), with 296 sugar baby students, New York University (NYU), with 244, and Arizona State University (ASU), with 236.
Becoming a sugar baby seems to be the answer for many students who worry about the cost of their education and their increasing debt.
Here at Keene State College, the price of tuition for the 2017-18 school-year is $11,188 for an in-state student, and $19,934 for an out-of-state student.
In addition to that, the cost of living on campus can range from about seven to ten thousand dollars depending on the building and room size, and the platinum meal rate, which offers unlimited meals, is $3,578; the bronze rate, the lowest offered, is $1,456 for 80 meals.
With the most expensive housing and meal plan, an out-of-state student could spend as much as $33,532 per year, and an in-state student could spend $24,786.
Throughout my life, almost every person I have talked to about college has had one thing in common – they all warn me about debt.
Students with sugar daddies have found a way to live a slightly more comfortable and stress-free life, but becoming a sugar baby is not the only way to supplement your income as a college student.
There are sites such as Swagbucks, which will give you gift cards for places like Walmart and Amazon or payments through Paypal, just for answering surveys, playing games or watching videos.
If you enjoy writing then you could make money from your dorm by writing for blogs like The Penny Hoarder, which could pay you to write about life tips or stories, or by starting your own blog and monetizing it with ads and sponsors.
However, these rewards are not available as immediately as with a sugar daddy.
Becoming a sugar baby may not be the right choice for everyone, but it seems to be of great help to those who choose to find a sugar daddy.
Abbygail Vasas can be contacted at avasas@kscequinox.com
