Yahoo Finance Over 300,000 Canadian university students turned to 'sugar daddies' and 'sugar mommies’ to cover costs
University is far from cheap. Canadian students rely on loans, part-time jobs, or maybe the ‘bank of mom and dad’. But a growing number of them are instead turning to wealthy benefactors to help fund their education.
According to SeekingArrangement, more than 300,000 students have used its ‘sugar daddy’ and ‘sugar mommy’ dating site at some point. Many of them were likely in desperate situations, considering university fees have risen 40 per cent in the last decade. The average yearly tuition is more than $6,000 a year.
SeekingArrangement was founded in 2006 by MIT graduate Brandon Wade. The website now has 20 million members worldwide.
On average, ‘sugar baby’ students get $2,925 a month, which is about double what they would make in a part-time job.
“Students should not be overwhelmed with the thought of drowning in debt upon graduation,” said Brandon Wade, founder and CEO of Seeking Arrangement, in a news release.
“Obtaining a great job, experiencing life and preparing for a bright future should be a university graduate’s main focus. While Canada does have one of the top university completion rates in the world, it also ranks fourth for most expensive country to attend university.”
More than 10,700 students from 20 Canadian universities used the site in 2018.
University of Toronto has the most students using SeekingArrangement with 1,170 by the end of 2018. It also had the most new sign-ups with 362. York University had the second most new sign-ups with 229. University of Waterloo was third with 204.
The rest of the top 20 can be seen below.
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