We’re all strongly encouraged to sell what you have learnt and become in Cambridge on the job market, either as a flashy intern in a boutique firm (business attire, captivating smile, polished shoes and all), or as a graduate yuppie raring to conquer the City. The question here is: why do some people consider it wrong to sell what you have learnt and become in Cambridge as a social service to improve the life of lonely middle-aged people who have lost their lust for life?

As of now, there are two ways to do that. Either you become a therapist, or you opt for the life of a sugar baby. Both are well-paid, and both could be satisfying under certain circumstances, as reported by insiders. The first is widely lauded, the second is controversial and causes a wide spectrum of reactions: from indignation and sniggering to praise and encouragement.

The sugar-baby phenomenon is very ancient, despite its modern name. The geisha of medieval Japan performed music and dance and engaged in intellectual conversations with their clients, both male and female. Sexual escalation of the platonic intercourse was strictly optional and not that widespread. While licensed courtesans existed to engage in the sex trade, the geisha were highly-paid, well-respected, highly-erudite companions. For some sugar babies today, this still holds true.

According to The Economist, about 75 per cent of students now graduating from American colleges are burdened with debt. The average American graduate owes $35,051. By comparison, roughly 50 per cent of graduates had any debt in 1995, and it averaged at around $12,000.  A report by the UK Parliament suggests that 79 per cent of English students matriculating in 2011/12 had taken out a tuition fee loan for an average of £3,330 (and that was before tuition fees were hiked), whilst 74 per cent of those students had also taken a maintenance loan with an average total value of £3,730.

A good way to establish a connection between economic circumstances and the rise of the sugar baby will be to establish whether there is a correlation between the affordability of university education and the number of registered student sugar babies. In the United States, the average tuition fee for both public and private institutions (accounting for inflation) has risen 2.21 times over since 1971, according to the National Centre for Education Statistics. This means that tuition fees have consistently been outpacing inflation. However, average hourly wages (accounting for inflation) have barely budged since 1970, which means that college is now more than two times more expensive for the average US family than it was forty years ago.

In 2012, UK fees were controversially raised from £3,000 to £9,000. However, according to the Office for National Statistics, the average hourly wage is down 9 per cent since 2009, which means that university education is more than three times as expensive for the average British family as it was in 2009 (again accounting for inflation). Some would argue that £3,000 was artificially low, and therefore that the current sum is closer to what should realistically be expected from students and their families, but the fact remains that the unexpected three-fold increase which took place just when Britain was beginning to recover from the recession meant many families could not immediately adjust their tight budgets and had to rely on debt (in the form of a student loans) to cover the gap. 

SeekingArangement.com, one of the most popular sugar-baby websites, reports that it now has about 900,000 registered student “sugar baby” members in the US, up from 458,000 two years ago. Brandon Wade, the site’s founder, maintains that 2,000 new students register an account every day, up from 1,200 students a day in 2014. 

Of course, this does not prove anything beyond another spurious, insignificant correlation, like the almost perfect correlation between the number of Nicolas Cage films released annually and the number of deaths by drowning in a pool in the US. Another strong factor may simply be the popularity of the website, which has certainly increased in recent years. However, the site has existed since 2006, but according to its owner registrations swelled only after the recession hit in 2009. The site is also scaling back advertising, firmly believing that its popularity is due to external factors such as the state of the economy and the size of tuition fees.

According to SeekingArrangement.com, the average monthly pay for British sugar babies is typically about £2,000. While any conversion to an hourly rate is dependent upon the type of activity and the “generosity” of the sugar mommy or sugar daddy, SeekingArrangement go as far as making the bold claim that about 66 percent of student sugar babies graduate without debt. Simple maths challenges this claim: if the average debt in the UK is around £40,000, and the monthly pay average at £2000, this would mean that two-and-a-half solid years of work as sugar baby will be needed. However, as constant “sugaring” is time-consuming, it is unlikely to be a manageable time commitment for most students. On the other hand, institutions and people differ, so it is not impossible.

Steven Pasternack, the owner of Sugardaddie, another website, says that his company gets around 5,000 new registrations daily, a quarter of which are students. Sugardaddie claims it does not discriminate against the desires of its members. However, most of the sugar-daddy profiles registered there have expressed a desire to meet a female sugar baby. Therefore, male students who would like to try their luck face increased competition and hence lower prospective pay, as their supply will invariably exceed the demand for them.

Does any of this qualify as prostitution? The websites argues that a sugar mommy or daddy do not want their sugar baby to leave, while no client “wants the hooker to stick around”, as SeekingArrangement puts it. This argument has been used in courts in American states where paying for sex is forbidden, and payment can be described as compensation for companionship, not for sex.

Scott Cunningham, a Professor of Economics at Baylor University, claims that proposed legislation against “sugaring” might unintentionally prohibit marriage, which could, after all, be described by some legally-astute cynics as “intercourse for financial support.”

There indeed seems to be a connection between the harsh economic reality of recent years, coupled with the substantial, above-inflation increase in tuition fees, and the proliferation of the sugar baby phenomenon. As a legal, well-paid practice, an ever greater number of students will be tempted to use it to make ends meet. The truth, however, is that a well-educated young person could earn much, much more with what they know and what they spent three precious years specialising in, if the labour market is healthy and employers are optimistic. The only way to discourage young people from being “misemployed” as sugar babies is not condemning the practice as “disreputable” and lamenting modern capitalism, but overcoming economic stagnation, increasing productivity and wages, and negotiating a fairer deal on student fees and loans with the powers that be.