Students are looking for creative means to supplement their incomes in the face of increasing tuition and living costs.  Egg donor programs offer up to $10,000 for one egg donation cycle and are one option for female students in need of extra cash.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted an increase in egg donations from 3,800 cycles in 1996 to more than 10,000 in 2004.  An egg donor earns $4,217 on average for one donation cycle, according to the journal Fertility and Sterility.  Egg donor programs provide income to the donor and the potential for infertile couples to raise children. Age requirements for donors fall between 21 and 35. Programs offer high compensation, but an egg donation procedure is not a quick and easy way to earn money.  Tara Pelletier, biological sciences graduate student, considered participating in the egg donor program but was deterred by the time commitment and potential effects of hormone treatment.  “It is way more complicated than I thought,” Pelletier said. She considered egg donation for solely financial reasons, Pelletier said.  Participating women are subjected to physical and mental screening prior to a three- to six-week cycle of sex hormone treatments to encourage eggs to reach maturation in the body.  Ten to 15 eggs are usually extracted from the donor in outpatient surgery. Eggs are then inseminated through in vitro fertilization and implanted in the surrogate mother. Surrogate parenting is not unique to humans. The coo-coo, cowbird and indigo bird are among species that participate in “breed parasitism,” a behavior in which birds remove eggs from the nest of another species and then leave their own eggs for that species to raise.  Noah Reid, biological sciences Ph.D. student, said birds engaging in breed parasitism try to trick another bird into mothering their chicks.  This allows the biological parents to pass along their genes without investing resources in nest-making and nurturing.  “It’s easier to make an egg than to raise a chick,” Reid said. —–Contact Elizabeth Chamberlain at [email protected]