As college costs continue their stubborn rise, and with work harder to come by during ananemic economic recovery, some students are resorting to a rather unusual measure in order to pay their college bills。

“Sugar Daddies,” wealthy older men who provide financial support to younger women in exchange for sex and companionship, have seen a rise in popularity among college students struggling to find a way to pay tuition。

College student membership on SeekingArrangement.com, a website that matches sugar daddies and sugar babies, has increased by 58 percent from December 2011 to December 2012.

“Currently, we have over 2 million members, 44 percent of whom are college students,” Leroy Velasquez, public relations manager at SeekingArrangement.com, told ABC News. “It’s very difficult to retain a part time or full-time job, especially when you have an academic life. With SeekingArrangement, we offer these types of relationships。”

Asked if he thought the anemic economy was contributing to the rise in sugar daddy arrangements, Velasquez said, “I think it’s directly correlated. We are in a very recessive economy, tuition costs and costs of living have increased and people are finding alternative ways of funding a college education, in this case becoming a sugar baby。”

Deeply indebted, facing a lackluster economy, and with jobs scarce, college students and recent graduates are entering into what could be called borderline prostitution to foot their bills。

“In 2011, we saw an explosion in the number of college students seeking sugar daddies to help pay their college tuition”， said SeekingArrangement.com founder Brandon Wade in a news release. “One in every two sugar babies who joins our website today are college students。”

SeekingArrangement.com released a list of the top 20 fastest growing “Sugar Baby” schools: Georgia State, NYU and Temple University topped the list。

According to SeekingArrangement.com, the average co-ed sugar baby receives approximately $3,000 a month in allowances and gifts from her sugar daddy, enough to cover tuition and living expenses at most schools。

(Read by Brian Salter. Brian Salter is a journalist at the China Daily Website。)

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(Agencies) 在美國當前經(jīng)濟復蘇勢頭疲軟的形勢下，大學學費持續(xù)上漲，但工作卻更難找到，一些學生正求助于另一種非常手段來支付大學費用。

“糖爹”——也就是以性和陪伴為交換條件向年輕女性提供經(jīng)濟支持的年長的富有男人——越來越受那些苦于無力支付學費的大學生的歡迎。

SeekingArrangement.com是一家為“糖爹”和“糖寶”們牽線搭橋的網(wǎng)站，在該網(wǎng)站注冊的大學生會員從2011年12月到2012年12月期間增加了58%。

SeekingArrangement.com的公關(guān)經(jīng)理雷若伊 維拉斯奎茲告訴美國廣播公司新聞網(wǎng)說：“目前我們有超過200萬的會員，其中44%是大學生。要保有一份兼職或全職工作很難，尤其是那些有課業(yè)負擔的大學生。而我們在SeekingArrangement.com網(wǎng)站上提供了建立這種特殊關(guān)系的渠道。”

在被問及是否認為經(jīng)濟疲軟是“糖爹”業(yè)務大增的原因時，維拉斯奎茲說：“我認為這是直接相關(guān)的。我們身處一個十分蕭條的經(jīng)濟環(huán)境中，學費和生活成本都上漲了，人們正在尋求支付大學學費的其他方式，于是便做了‘糖寶’。”

身負巨債、經(jīng)濟前景黯淡、工作稀缺……大學生和新近的畢業(yè)生們?yōu)榱酥Ц顿~單，正步入一種“邊緣型賣淫”的生活狀態(tài)。

SeekingArrangement.com的創(chuàng)立者布蘭頓 韋德在一篇新聞通稿中說：“2011年，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)尋找‘糖爹’來幫忙支付大學學費的大學生人數(shù)激增。現(xiàn)在每兩個加入我們網(wǎng)站的‘糖寶’，就有一個是大學生。”

SeekingArrangement.com發(fā)布了“糖寶”增速最快的學校前20名，喬治亞州立大學、紐約大學和坦普爾大學位居榜首。

據(jù)SeekingArrangement.com網(wǎng)站稱，參與援交的“糖寶”一般每月能從“糖爹”那里得到約3000美元的生活費和禮物，足以支付在大部分學校的學費和生活開支。