Brock Landers, a graduate from the University of California, Davis, pulls his black wallet out of his pants, opens it up and is sad to see six measly dollars. On top of that, his financial aid check won't come for another month.

“It was either the decision to donate my sperm or continue eating expired macaroni-and-cheese for the rest of the month,” Landers says. “You can't roll into a bar and get drinks with food stamps.”

Landers arrives at the sperm bank the following day and after 30 minutes in the small, white room with low-quality porn, the job is complete. Although he says he felt “extremely uncomfortable,” Landers walked out of the sperm bank with fatter pockets.

More and more college students each day decide to donate their eggs and sperm. Why? For the love of money. “I know that college students are a target area for clinics looking for donors,” says Suzanne Koga, marketing director at Pacific Reproductive Services (PRS). “If I had to guess, I would say 65 to 70 percent of our donors are college students.” Universities, particularly Ivy League schools, are sought after because their populations are swarming with viable candidates: college-educated young adults. In addition, the better the school a potential donor attends, the more he or she is worth. But donation is no simple task. While both sexes have to go through a process, the guys have it much easier than the girls.

According to Koga, despite the fact that advertisements are in almost every newspaper, there are many qualifications one must meet before even attempting to be a sperm donor. Males must meet “interview criteria,” which includes questions about both their sexual and medical history, and they must range in age from 21 to 35 years old. After the paperwork is complete, males ejaculate and their sperm is sent to one of the sperm bank offices where it is tested for sperm count, motility and ability to withstand the freezing process. Regardless of the quality of their sperm, the men get paid. Exactly how much is determined by whether or not they want to be anonymous. PRS will pay $80 for “willing to be known donors,” and $60 for “anonymous donors.”

Potential female egg donors, on the other hand, are not compensated for the time and effort it takes to fill out the needed paperwork. A simple “Thank you for your time and interest” will do, but no dough. Most women who want to donate their eggs go through a far more rigorous process than simply walking into a sperm bank and jacking off into a cup. On top of that, only a handful actually make it to the final process.

Piper McKnight, a graduate of Humboldt State University, was rejected four times from four different fertility clinics in the Bay Area. Now she doesn't want to procreate because, "If no one else wants to gamble with my eggs, why would I want to?" Eight years ago, when 27-year-old McKnight first saw an egg donor advertisement in "SF Weekly," she remembers thinking, “Wow, that's a lot of money!” She went to the publication's Web site immediately, filled out the paperwork online and waited eagerly to hear back from them, envisioning an infertile family in need of her eggs. Awaiting the fertility clinic's decision, McKnight thought of how much money she would ask for upon receiving a letter of confirmation that some far-away family in need was on the market for her blonde-haired, blue-eyed genes. “I thought about asking for $4,000 or $5,000,” McKnight says.

This preoccupation with the worth of her eggs isn't entirely due to vanity. In fact, stories about women selling their eggs for $20,000 or more have rocked the in vitro fertilization field. According to the Pacific Fertility Center, most fertility clinics in the Bay Area have limits on how much they are willing to spend on their egg donors. However, the egg donors can auction themselves off “privately” if they believe their eggs are “above average.” “The main reasons a person would be turned away as a potential egg donor is their medical history or their age,” says Susan Hatheway at the Reproductive Science Center of the San Francisco Bay Area. “The normal age range at a fertility clinic is 21 to 32 years old.” Rachel Reid, donor coordinator for the Sperm Bank of California, says only 3 percent to 5 percent of sperm and egg donor applicants pass all the selection criteria.

According to Hatheway, the decision to become an egg donor should not be taken lightly. The Reproductive Science Center has many steps a potential egg donor must complete before even becoming eligible. This includes a lot of paperwork, which involves extensive personal and family health history, and blood work that ensures the woman is fertile and checks for infectious diseases they may be carrying. In addition, the donor must also see a psychologist and go through genetic counseling to make sure she has no inheritable diseases or conditions. Once chosen, the donors are educated on how to give themselves daily injections in preparation for the invasive procedure.

McKnight never made it past the initial paperwork. “Before my rejections, I had never thought about my eggs that critically before,” she says. “There are many undesirable things about me and my immediate family that I could possibly pass on to my children. I would hate myself forever knowing that my child is an alcoholic or is bi-polar because of me. There would be too much guilt.”

Landers doesn't have plans to donate his sperm again. “It's all fun and games until I unknowingly knock up my cousin," he says. "Unless of course happy hour is calling. Is that wrong?”