98 ‘Sugar Babies’ at Leeds

Sugar daddies are cleaning up in Leeds as dozens of students have registered with a dating website that lets older men ‘sponsor’ young women.

98 Leeds students signed up to SeekingArrangement.com last year, a controversial American website which launched in the UK in May 2012. Young women on the site spend time with the site’s wealthy men in exchange for gifts and, often, cash allowances.

The website specifically targets students by offering them free premium account access, as long as they sign up with a university email address.

SeekingArrangement.com reported a 58% increase in students enrolling last year.

According to the website, the average ‘sugar baby’ receives £5,000 per month from their ‘benefactors’ to ‘cover the cost of tuition, books and living expenses’. The average salary of the site’s male subscribers is £170,000 a year.

A survey of ‘relationships’ on the site found that 80% of them involve sex.

Brandon Wade, SeekingArrangement.com’s founder, wrote on the site: “Because the relationship between a sugar daddy and a sugar baby is romantic in nature, most sugar relationships will likely involve ‘sex’

“And because a sugar daddy is expected to be the generous gentleman, ‘money’ will always be spent on the sugar baby. I don’t see anything wrong (or illegal) with that!”

Leeds lags someway behind the top institution on the list. Cambridge saw 168 students register with the site in 2012.

New sign-ups on SeekingArrangement.com last year:

1 University of Cambridge – 168

2 London School of Economics – 163

3 University of Kent – 160

4 University of Nottingham – 155

5 Glasgow Caledonian University – 154

6 University of Southampton – 153

7 Oxford Brooks University – 150

8 University of Edinburgh – 148

9 University of St. Andrews – 147

10 University College London – 140

11 Brunel University, London – 137

12 University of East London – 136

13 University of Manchester – 134

14 Goldsmith, University of London – 133

15 University of Exeter – 129

16 Queens University Belfast – 120

17 University of Westminster – 115

18 University of Leeds – 98

19 University of Surrey – 96

20 London South Bank University – 89