The homepage of seekingarragements.com displays a picture of a middle-aged businessman flaunting his money at a young girl, who is posing seductively. I wonder, what is ‘The Elite Sugar Daddy Dating Site for those Seeking Mutually Beneficial Relationships & Mutually Beneficial Arrangements’, really all about?
The formula is this: the website puts in place a relationship between a ‘sugar daddy’ – an older, wealthy man – and what the company calls a ‘sugar baby’, or younger woman. The arrangements vary, but a female student’s university fees are generally covered in exchange for a ‘friendship’ arrangement.

While Oxford apparently shuns ‘sugar daddy’ schemes, Cambridge has more students signing up to them than any other university in the UK. In 2012, 168 Cambridge students joined the American website seekingarrangements.com, and since then the figure has risen by 58 per cent for female students. The next eight universities on the list are in London. So what is it about this implicitly sexual dating website that attracts students?

I phone up the company’s European Press Office. I told them that I was keen to set up an account because I was overwhelmed by the pressure of increased tuition fees, but was put off by their images, like the full-screen photo of a young girl lying on a bed in her underwear with dollar bills covering her body.

I expressed my serious concern at the explicit content of their website, and told them I did not think my parents would be terribly happy that a stranger was funding my education in return for ‘friendship’. The response I receieved was extremely vague, although I was reassured that I was being paid “for a relationship, but not just any relationship”.

For example, “if a man is married, he can have another companion outside apart from his wife”, or “if he works an 80-hour week, and doesn’t have enough time for a typical relationship, then he can find someone attractive for companionship”.

For students in America with fees in the tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of dollars, it is easy to see why some are seeking creative ways out from the financial pressure.

However, despite dramatic fee increases in the UK, government loans and grants are supposed to protect students from such a burden, at least during their university years. But these extremely wealthy businessmen can mean a debt-free future, and even offer potential career opportunities through their contacts. For some students, it seems like an easy way out.

What happens after university? The company’s response to this question was vague, saying: “it all depends on the relationship agreement”. Their website proudly boasts a “no sex for money” policy, claiming: “if they [the clients] wanted an escort to please them sexually, they could spend a lot less money”. Students can receive as much as £5,000 per term from their “benefactors”.

According to the website, this money is to “cover the cost of tuition, books and living expenses”. As a bonus, there are parties and socials, and potential networking opportunities, for the young women, who accompany their sugar daddies to all sorts of events.

However, I took this description with a grain of salt: I suspect the rose-tinted ‘career-start’ advertised to me may well be quite distant from the reality.