Last year, hundreds of female college students like Paula joined SeekingArrangement.com, an online dating service that aims to connect older, wealthy "sugar daddies" with younger, attractive "sugar babies" looking to be pampered in exchange for some affection. The boom in membership was so high among female students that the website last month released a national ranking of the top 20 colleges and universities whose students joined the website in 2011.
Temple was No. 5.
Ray Betzner, Temple's assistant vice president of university communications, said that the university was unaware of this dubious distinction and questioned the validity of the statistic.
SeekingArrangement's founder, Brandon Wade, defended the information, grounding it in firsthand experience with some of the "babies."
"With the economy doing so badly, people are taking matters into their own hands, trying to figure out the best way to pay for college without creating a huge amount of debt," said Wade, 41, who has a 26-year-old sugar baby of his own in stunning girlfriend Tanya Kymtsova.
Wade, an MIT grad who started the website in 2005, said that the sugar babies usually join in search of a more luxurious lifestyle. Now, the website is being invaded by more pragmatic college students - women, and some guys, looking for a benefactor to pay their student loans, provide start-up capital for their businesses or help them land jobs.
In Paula's case, that last point is most important. She's on the prowl for a well-connected suitor.
"He doesn't have to be a company president, but he does have to have some ambition," she said. "If he can help me network, that would be fine, too."
Paula's been messaging a few "daddies" through the website, but nothing serious has developed yet. Sugar babies like her can chat and arrange dates for free, and college-age members (who sign up with a .edu email address) get special perks like higher placement in search results.
