More Dutch students turn to sugar daddies to finance studies

The number of Dutch students financing their studies with money fro a so-called sugar daddy increased significantly over the past year, according to figures from sites that mediate such arrangements, AD reports.  The sugar daddy, sugar baby arrangement is basically company in exchange for money. Older, successful businessmen and women with little time for relationships meet up with young men or women who could use some extra cash. According to SeekingArrangement, one mediating site, the number of Dutch users increased from almost 15 thousand in February last year to nearly 21 thousand at present. About a quarter of the Dutch sugar babies - 4,038 - are students. The site attributes the big increase partly to the study grant being abolished last year. "If you compare the Netherlands with other countries such as England or the United States, the Netherlands was always relatively affordable. But now that the aid dropped away, students suffer quite a loss", COE Brandon Wade said to the newspaper. Dick Krijnen of the Dutch site Suikerarrangement.nl partially agrees. According to him, it is not a new thing that students register as sugar babies, and it is difficult to say how many of the people on the site are students as not everyone mentions it in their profile. But the sugar daddy-sugar baby ration did increase from 1:4 to 1:5. "If you look at the ages, you see that the largest group of sugar babies are aged between 18 and 28, so there are undoubtedly students among them."