The Sugar Daddy Scholarship

An interesting press release came across my desk this morning. The website SeekingArrangement.com touts itself as "the world's largest Sugar Daddy dating site" and has released its annual list of the top 20 Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools.

According to the release, 42 percent of the website's members are college students. The website says that the popularity of the "sugar" lifestyle is growing and students using the site receive an average of $3,000 per month in allowances and gifts from these sugar daddies. The website's founder, Brandon Wade, says "why hope for financial aid when you can guarantee it with a Sugar Daddy?"

At the top of the top 20 Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools list is the University of Central Florida, where 474 students signed up for the SeekingArrangement.com website in 2013. Other schools on the top 20 list include Arizona State University (#2 on the list) and the University of Southern California (#8 on the list). Six of the 20 schools are located in the South; three are in Florida (UCF, FIU, USF), two in Georgia (GSU and UGA) and one in Louisiana (LSU).

The University of Alabama, whose Board of Trustees this summer approved tuition hikes for all three campuses across the state, did not make the top 20 list -- barely. The 97 University of Alabama students that signed up for SeekingArrangement.com in 2013 put their school at number 23 on the list.

College isn't cheap. A single, full-time semester at UA can cost over $12,000. A CNNMoney report from 2012 indicates that tuition at private, nonprofit, four-year colleges has jumped 60 percent in the decade prior; tuition at public colleges more than doubled during the same time.

The most obvious point of contention lies in the types of relationships these students might have to shape with an opulent partner. One side of an online discussion this morning likened these arrangements to prostitution. Another side said that mutually beneficial relationships are a personal choice and that any sort of social stigma could be eliminated if society could "mind it's [sic] own business."

But how would those social stigmas change when the gender roles are reversed? Does society collectively cringe when a young woman engages in a "mutually beneficial relationship" with an older man with money, but not give a second thought to a young man engaging in a similar relationship with an older woman with money?

What about the perception of people with money being able to essentially "purchase" their status? Is a wealthy man in his 50s forming a relationship with a woman in her teens a sign of benevolence, or a sociopathic disorder?

The most important part of this conversation, in my opinion, should focus on just how difficult it is to become successful in the U.S. Education is out of reach for a growing number of Americans. Parents and students alike are trying to figure out how to afford college -- and everything else promised to us by the American Dream. The expectation that hard work will make a person successful is a farce in the 21st century.

Elbow grease and all-night study sessions don't cover the cost of admission into the hallowed halls of success anymore. Proof of that can be found on the press release on my desk this morning:

"One Million Students Seek Sugar Daddies in 2013"

What will society look like in 20 years after those million sugar babies are out of college and walking those halls of success?

What will society look like in 20 years after the rest of us who couldn't graduate college or land a wealthy benefactor are relegated to second-class citizen?

My guess: not much will change.

Clockwise from top left: John Ensign, Tim Mahoney, John Edwards, Chris Lee, Anthony Weiner, David Petraeus. All men were found to have had relationships with women to which they were not married. (Photos are public domain)

- MDS