The recession has caused parents to save more for college, though apparently it’s not working out so well. According to a piece by D.C. Denison in the Boston Globe:
The number of parents who are saving to pay future college costs is up, but the percentage of costs those savings will cover is slipping down.
That’s the good news/bad news from a study to be released today by the Boston financial services giant Fidelity Investments. The study found that this year 69 percent of Massachusetts parents have begun saving for future college costs, up from 59 percent in 2008. Yet the percentage of college costs the savings are projected to meet is only 18 percent, down from 22 percent last year, and 29 percent in 2007.
The cause of both appears to be the economy however. Parents are saving more for college because they’re less confident they’ll make more money in coming years. At the same time, schools are being less generous with financial aid, because they too are worried about the future of their finances.
While technically the report provides data on only Massachusetts, there’s no reason to think that what holds true for the Bay State doesn’t also apply to the rest of the country.
