HUNDREDS of cash-strapped ACT university students are turning to prostitution to pay rent and living expenses, with 200 signing up to a website that matches millionaires with young women.
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The US-based website, SeekingArrangement.com, has released a list that shows how many university students are exchanging sex for cash, gifts and holidays.
Almost 90 students from the Australian National University have signed up, with 17 University of Canberra students and 28 Canberra Institute of Technology students also posting their details.
The Australian Catholic University has 64 registered ''sugar babies'' but this figure is Australia-wide.
Petite and blonde, Sarah is a 19-year-old local business student. She agreed to talk to Fairfax Media on the condition of anonymity.
Sarah has used the website for almost two years. She has had two ''relationships'' with men she met on the website. They have paid her rent, given her gifts, taken her on business trips and also paid her HECS fees.
''I had to pay for uni on my own as I grew up in a single parent household and my mum is unable to help me,'' she said.
One of the men was 33 and did not want to get married. The other was married with children.
''I have had sex with both of my sugar daddies, just as I would my boyfriend … for Christmas, my married sugar daddy gave me an iPad. I also went to Paris for a holiday last year.''
But she keeps her activities a secret because of the stigma.
''None of my friends, even my old flatmate, know that I use this site,'' she said. ''They know that I date older men, but I don't use the [expression] sugar daddy.''
Asked if she considered it prostitution, she said no.
''I do make it a point to only see one sugar daddy at a time, though, and see him as my boyfriend.
''Boys my own age just cannot provide the same kind of relationship. I want a man, a rich man, at this point.''
The website offers free premium upgrades for all women with an official university email address but a spokeswoman for ANU said any students who used theirs could face disciplinary action for breaking the school's code of conduct.
