Millennial Parents More Likely To Save For Kids’ College

@reuters
Millennial Parents More Likely To Save For Kids’ College

By Liz Weston

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Millennial parents are far more likely than their predecessors to save for their children’s educations and far more of them want to pay the whole tab for college, according to a survey.

Whether they will be able to do so is questionable, though, given the relatively small amounts most have saved so far.

Seventy-four percent of parents aged 30 to 34 polled for the 2015 Fidelity Investments College Savings Indicator have put aside money for college, compared to 58 percent of parents the same age who were polled in 2007.

Nearly half (48 percent) of the group born between 1981 and 1985 plan to pay for all college costs, compared with just 16 percent of parents the same age in 2007, according to the survey conducted for Fidelity by Boston Research Technologies.

Millennial parents have spent much if not all of their adult lives living with the fallout from the financial crisis, said Keith Bernhardt, vice president of retirement and college products at Fidelity. That experience has made them cautious about debt and determined to help their children avoid burdensome student loans, he said.

“They’ve seen the repercussions of taking on too much debt and the cost of that,” Bernhardt said.

The current batch of thirty-something parents have saved a median $1,500, though, compared to the $1,000 median amount saved by parents of the same age in 2007.

Overall, the parents surveyed hoped to pay for 66 percent of their children’s college costs. Fidelity projected that based on current savings rates, they will be able to cover just 27 percent of projected college costs on average, Bernhardt said.

Fidelity’s survey does not represent the general population. Those surveyed were far more likely to have a college degree, for one thing.

The research firm interviewed 2,470 parents with children aged 18 and younger and household incomes over $30,000 a year or more. Among parents born between 1981 and 1997, 85 percent of those surveyed had attended college and 61 percent had college degrees.

A Pew Research Center survey last year found that 34 percent of people born between 1980 and 2000 had college degrees and 61 percent had attended college.

The higher rates of education may explain why these parents are so gung-ho about helping their kids pay for college: these parents understand the benefit. An earlier Pew study found that 86 percent of college graduates felt their own education was a good investment, even as the majority of Americans (57 percent) said the higher education system fails to provide good value for the cost.

While they may not be saving enough, the millennial parents polled have done many things right, Bernhardt said. The vast majority of millennials saving for college put money aside monthly (79 percent), compared to 72 percent of GenX college savers and 66 percent of Boomer savers. Most millennial savers (57 percent) started saving before their children turned six, compared to 47 percent of GenXers and 37 percent of Boomers.

Forty-three percent of millennials polled use 529 college savings plans to save (Fidelity just so happens to offer 529s), compared with 37 percent of GenX and Boomers.

One thing parents are still getting wrong, though, is being afraid that saving for college will hurt their kids’ ability to get financial aid. Fidelity found 53 percent had that fear, even though money saved in a parent’s name—such as in a 529—has only a small impact on aid. Financial aid formulas expect parents to use less than 6 percent of their non-retirement savings for college. Incomes factor far more into financial aid formulas than assets.

“If you save $10,000, you’ll lose just $600 in financial aid,” Bernhardt said. “They want people to save.”

(The author is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

(Reporting By Liz Weston; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Photo: Graduates celebrate receiving a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University during the year’s commencement ceremony in New York in this May 18, 2005 file photo. REUTERS/Chip East/Files

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