Parents looking for help in paying for a child’s post-secondary education, poll finds

When it comes to paying for their children’s post-secondary education, 37% of Canadian parents expect grandparents and other family members to pitch in with the expenses, according to a recent poll from RBC Financial Group.

“With the cost of post-secondary education increasing, many parents are looking to others for help in financing their children’s post-secondary education,” said Kathryn Whalley, RBC’s national manager, consumer markets, in a release.

“Extended family members who want to help with a child’s education fund can make the biggest impact by contributing to that child’s Registered Education Savings Plan,” she added.

According to the RBC RESP poll, conducted by Ipsos-Reid, a clear majority of Canadian parents place a very high value on education and 97% would like their child to attend college or university. In fact, 79% of parents say the cost of post-secondary education is worth it as university and college graduates earn more money than high school grads do.

Parents are also counting on their children to contribute to education costs. According to the poll, many parents expect their children to cover some of the cost of their post-secondary studies (on average 30%), and a full 67% of parents are counting on their children to qualify for scholarships or bursaries.

Seventy per cent of parents agree an RESP should be started before a child reaches the age of four. The poll also found that the more education a parent has, the more likely they are to start investing in an RESP (61% of university grads opened their child’s RESP before that child turned four, versus 49% of high school graduates).

The poll was conducted between July 12 and July 26, 2005. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1,004 Canadian parents of children 0-17 years of age in the household was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within (+/-) 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what would have been, had the entire adult Canadian parent population been polled.