Clients want to save for kids’ education but don’t know how

If your clients are parents and you haven’t yet discussed saving for post-secondary education, a new poll suggests having that discussion would not only help them achieve a highly valued goal but it might also leave them feeling less overwhelmed.

The survey, commissioned by Embark Student Corp. (previously Knowledge First Financial), found that post-secondary education is important to most of the Canadian parents polled.

A large majority of respondents — 89% — said they’d like their kids to pursue higher education, and close to the same proportion (81%) said it’s their duty as a parent to help pay for it.

However, nearly three-quarters of respondents (73%) said it’s harder now to save for kids’ education because of rising living expenses. In fact, 40% of respondents had stopped saving for their kids’ education.

Another challenge for nearly one-third of respondents (31%) was not knowing enough about education costs to estimate a savings goal. Further, only 46% of respondents knew about the Canada Education Savings Grant, and only 27% knew about the Canada Learning Bond.

The savings challenge plus lack of knowledge could have repercussions for parents’ own financial health and peace of mind. Over half of respondents (52%) said they were willing to go into debt to pay for their kids’ education, and 61% would put off retirement. Six in 10 (62%) said saving for kids’ education can be overwhelming.

The online survey of 1,000 Canadian parents was conducted May 5 to May 12 using Leger’s online panel. Online surveys can’t be assigned a margin of error because they don’t randomly sample the population.

Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.