Prepare to start following a new set of school rankings. Though the U of M is still building up its program in this ... uh, event. But! There are national rankings, and according to them, Minnesota's making great strides to keep pace with national leaders.

And just like a real sport, participating in this activity -- hell, even thinking about it -- will make everyone feel like taking a shower.

There are presently at least 564 "sugar baby" students at the University of Minnesota, according to Seeking Arrangements, the website which facilitates "mutually beneficial arrangements" between the well-off and the well-built.

That's a fairly low number -- New York University has 1,529 registered sugar babies, and Arizona State University's got 1,361. But Minnesota did crack the Seeking Arrangements top 20 for "sign-up growth" during 2017, when 169 new students joined, a 37 percent over the U's previous sugar-thirsty student population.

Seeking Arrangements thoughtfully connects rises in its college-age clientele with the massive rise in student debt. (A "debt clock" on the website says combined American student loan debt is at $1.5 trillion, and counting.)

"Figuring out how to manage that number is difficult," Seeking Arrangements observes, "but students have developed a solution to this problem: Sugar Daddies."

The financial fixer site doesn't discriminate against genders, but the statistics are one-sided: Sugar daddies outnumber "sugar mommies" by more than 10-to-1 (484,000 to about 43,000), while the population of male "sugar babies" is dwarfed by females (466,000 to 2.25 million).

Should Gophers alumni feel like carrying this ranking as a badge of honor, consider that the U of M is the only Midwestern school to make this top 20 list. Does this make Minnesota the most resourceful school in the Big Ten? The least scrupulous? The most afraid of asking their parents for money one more time? Watch to see how the U spins this statistic in future recruiting materials.

As of last year, University administrators were seeking to shift the burden of trading regrettable sex for financial support to out-of-state students, whose tuition costs are set to rise 15 percent next year, to $28,734. (Students from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas pay $12,800.)

Though St. Cloud State University is nowhere near this list, a diligent St. Cloud Times reporter discovered that 67 SCSU students are registered on Seeking Arrangements.

Even parochial youths are getting in on the act. The College of St. Benedict and St. John's has 12 students using the website service, and, in alphabtical order, their names are:

No, just kidding.

Go forth and prosper, students. But be careful. As evidenced by its numbers, this website is both secretive and popular. You might go looking for a sugar daddy... and wind up finding your real one.