Sugar Daddies Use Dating Website to Find Sugar Babies at UGA in Athens, Ga.

An online dating service that matches college students with “sugar daddies” says UGA's female students  are among the most active on its site.

SeekingArrangement.com released a list of the "Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools,” ranking colleges where it says the most young women are signing up for the site.

The University of Georgia was number 8 on the list, according to a press release from the website. According to a story in the Red & Black, in 2011 there were 281 UGA students registered on the site. 

Some on campus remember the Red & Black story, thinking at the time that the number of participants represented only a fraction of the student female population.

Members sign up as a sugar daddy, a sugar mama or sugar baby. Sugar babies are described on the website as “students, actresses, models or girls & guys next door. You know you deserve to date someone who will pamper you, empower you, and help you mentally, emotionally and financially.”

Angela Jacob Bermudo, a publicist for SeekingArrangement.com, said the average sugar baby is 22 years old and attends school. "She is looking for a mutually beneficial relationship," she said in a phone conversation with Patch.

The majority of students who use the site are females in search of wealthy older men to help them pay off loans and tuition bills, The Huffington Post reported in July 2011. According to the AJC's Maureen Downey, the website told her:

As the cost of living rises and tuition hikes continue, college students are forced to look for alternative methods to raise an enormous amount of funds in order to pursue their education. Some choose to take out student loans, or receive help from their parents, and other students are turning to Sugar Daddies.

The average student sugar baby “receives approximately $3,000 a month in allowances and gifts from her Sugar Daddy, enough to cover tuition and living expenses at most schools," The Huffington Post reported.

The CEO of the company says the relationships between sugar daddies and sugar babies are not a form of prostitution. “There is chemistry involved in these relationships,” Brandon Wade told The Wall Street Journal in August 2011. “It’s not a one-time exchange of money for sex…After a relationship forms, sex becomes part of the relationship.”

One User’s Experience

Stephanie, 21, of Brooklyn, NY, used SeekingArrangement.com briefly before deciding it wasn’t for her. “If you're the kind of girl who just wants to be taken care of, then that's what this site has going for you,” she told Patch. 

Stephanie, a student at FIT who did not want to reveal her last name, said she did meet one man she was interested in on the site. They exchanged numbers and had a “texting relationship” for a couple months.

“It felt like we didn’t really meet on SeekingArrangement. I think we both steered away from the website because we didn’t have the same opinions and views as most of the people on there,” she said.

Her advice for curious users: be realistic going in. “Sugar babies are there to seek someone’s money and travel with them for free. The guys probably just want to find young, beautiful women to either be arm candy at events or just have sex with.”

Other Ranked Colleges

SeekingArrangement.com launched in 2005 and reportedly has 2 million members. The Las Vegas-based company says 148 new members from UGA joined the site in 2012,.

SeekingArrangement.com used the following data to create its list of fastest growing sugar baby schools. Below are the schools identified by the site, as well as the number of female students who signed up for the site in 2012, followed by the school’s ranking on a similar list released for 2011.

1. Georgia State University – 292 (#11 in 2011)
2. New York University – 285 (#1 in 2011)
3. Temple University – 268 (#5 in 2011)
4. University of Central Florida – 221 (#14 in 2011)
5. University of South Florida – 212 (#7 in 2011)
6. Arizona State University – 204 (#8 in 2011)
7. Florida International University - 187
8. University of Georgia – 148 (#2 in 2011)
9. Indiana University – 123 (#17 in 2011)
10. Texas State - 131
11. Kent State University – 128 (#15 in 2011)
12. Penn State – 121 (#13 in 2011)
13. University of North Texas - 112
14. Florida State University - 111
15. Tulane University – 109 (#4 in 2011)
16. Michigan State University – 108 (#9 in 2011)
17. Ohio University - 103
18. Columbia University - 100
19. University of Alabama - 96
20. UCLA - 91