harvard

As costs for tuition soar, college students are scrambling for ways to pay off their student debt. In the latest exposé by Huffington Post, we're clued into this alarming new trend of higher education students turning to online sugar-daddy websites to pay for school. The "arrangements" many of the members agree to often include sex and some sort of money transaction. One such website, SeekingArrangement.com, shared some statistics about its student userbase with HuffPo, which revealed a good number of Harvard students on the site. Here is a list of the top 10 undergraduate universities attended by the "sugar babies":

1. New York University: 498 users
2. University of Toronto: 471 users
3. Pennsylvania State: 434 users
4. Ohio State University: 398 users
5. University of Wisconsin: 345 users
6. University of Oklahoma: 312 users
7. University of Georgia: 281 users
8. University of California at Los Angeles: 253 users
9. Harvard University: 231 users
10. University of Minnesota: 218 users

Other top colleges include UC Berkeley, ranked at 13 with 193 users, followed by University of Michigan with 189 members and University of Southern California with 183 sugar babies. Many students use their official school email addresses that end with an .edu in order to get the free account upgrade from SeekingArrangement.com. This helps the site compile its data on the student demographic.

I agree with TrèsSugar Assistant Editor Tara Sharp that these girls can definitely find a more responsible way to pay for school if they put in some time and effort, and that in this case, the ends don't justify the means. It's sad to see the amount of students on the site more than tripled compared with stats from 2007, which is partly thanks to its sneaky marketing tactics of buying ads that pop up when people search for terms like "tuition help" and "financial aid." I'm wondering, do think these sugar babies knew what they were getting into?

We constantly advocate professional development here on Savvy, and it's nice to see celebrities take heed of that as well. Entrepreneur and former Victoria's Secrets model Tyra Banks has enrolled in Harvard's Owner/President Management Program (it's not an MBA) since last year, and is enjoying herself immensely, according to US Weekly. The program is taught in sessions spanning three weeks over the course of three years.

When she was 17, Tyra dropped out of Loyola Marymount University in order to chase her modeling career, and she says it is "one of the most difficult decisions of my entire life." Pursuing higher education has always been a dream of hers, and it looks like she picked Harvard's program because she says that "in order for my company to grow and be the best, and to reach these women, and to serve them, I needed the best. So I went to the best."

Harvard is definitely one of the premier business schools in the nation, and it seems like Tyra has been receiving "mixed reactions" from her fellow classmates. The supermodel says:

"There are little facial expressions . . . the chin goes back, like, 'Really?' . . . it's like, 'Why is a model going to Harvard?' But that's actually a good thing, because when people have low expectations, you're just constantly going, 'Ta-da!' And they're like 'Wow.' It doesn't take a lot to wow them."

Let's develop ourselves professionally together! Join my Professional Development Kick group and share your stories to inspire the rest of us.

• Joe Jonas will be guest-judging tonight's Top Chef Quickfire. — Grub Street SF
• A sneak peek at the first-ever Rolling Stone restaurant in America.— Eater LA
• Legendary Charm City crab house Obrycki's will shutter next year. — Chow
• Barbecue spaghetti: yes, you can do this! — Serious Eats
• Philly restaurant Adsum will hold a four-course dinner, all made with Four Loko. — Slashfood
• Scientists believe the world could run out of food by the year 2050. — Time
• Shortbread could learn some holiday lessons from fruitcake. — Salon
• Even Harvard was impressed by David Chang's food lecture. — The Feast NY

• A peek at The French Laundry's intense kitchen culture. — San Francisco Chronicle
• The Iowa egg producer linked to the recent salmonella outbreak tested positive for the same bacteria in 2008. — New York Times
• In the last couple of years, néo-bistrots have offered Parisian cuisine at an affordable price. — Wall Street Journal
• Should food trucks have to carry health letter grades, too? — Los Angeles Times
• Fermentation enthusiasts are encouraging eaters to embrace friendly bacteria in their food. — Washington Post
• Meet NoOodle, a pasta with no calories, no carbs, and no fat. — Chicago Tribune
• Inside Ferran Adrià's new Harvard class, Science and Cooking. — Boston Globe

Source: Flickr User arnold | inuyaki

Harvard faculty, students, and the surrounding community are mulling over a disturbing incident that went down last week. Last Thursday, prominent African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested in his home after a woman saw him trying to unlock his jammed door and assumed he was a robber. Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct.

According to the police report, when an officer showed up to the house and asked Gates to step outside so he could discuss a potential break-in in progress, Gates asked, "Why, because I'm black in America?" (He's a prolific author of books on the African-American experience.)

Although the police officer believed that Gates was in his home lawfully (Gates produced his ID card), he claimed he was surprised and confused by Gates' behavior toward him. After Gates exhibited "loud and tumultuous behavior" by continuing to yell, the officer handcuffed him, put him under arrest, and took him in a police cruiser to be booked.

Some in the community are wondering: would this have happened to a white professor? Whether or not the motivation was racial, it sure seems like an overreaction to arrest a person who's at his own house for "loud and tumultuous behavior."