Did you know, there’s an education savings gap in British Columbia? We connected with our friends at Ipsos to survey BC parents to find out how much they knew about the cost of higher education and how they were saving for tuition and fees. Find out what parents are saying and how the British Columbia Training and Education Savings Grant can help families reach their goals. Explore our survey results.

1. Saving for your
child’s education:
Why parents need to
bridge the gap

2. 1 in 3 (33%)
parents in BC are not
setting anything aside for
college/university.

3. $32,575
The cost of a 4 year
Bachelor of Arts
degree at UBC when
student fees and
books are factored in.¹
¹ http://you.ubc.ca/financial-
planning/cost/

4. 60/40
The % split between BC parents who can
correctly identify the cost of a 4 year B.A. at
UBC and those who think it’s much less.

5. Did you know
you can claim as much as
$8,400 in government grants*
to help you save for your
child’s post-secondary
education?
*The Canada Education Savings Grant matches 20% of the first
$2,500 you contribute to your child’s RESP each year up to a
lifetime maximum of $7,200.BC Training and Education Savings
Grant is a one-time $1,200 grant for eligible BC resident children
born on or after January 1st 2006 available on or after their sixth
birthday. Conditions apply.

6. Almost half
(47%) of BC parents say
they are aware of all the grants
offered with an RESP.

7. Only half (48%)
of BC parents are saving or plan
to invest in an RESP.

8. The ways BC
parents fund
their child’s
education.
48 % in an RESP
11% in a TFSA
6% student loans
3% line of credit

9. 1 in 3
parents either aren’t,
can’t or won’t put
anything aside for
their child’s post-
secondary education.

10. 4 in 5
parents expect their child to attend some
form of post-secondary education.

11. A majority of
parents (68%)
believe they should be paying
for their child’s post-
secondary education.

12. Financial hardships
are anticipated:
6 in 10 parents will or have encouraged
their kids to go to school close to home.
4 in 10 will need to borrow money or go
into debt to help their child.
1 in 3 will need to dip into retirement funds
or delay retirement because their child will
have too much debt.

13. 7 in 10
parents believe their
child should help pay
for some of his/her
university/college costs.

14. About the survey
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between August 29 and
September 2, 2016, on behalf of the C.S.T. Consultants Inc. For this survey, a
sample of 395 parents in British Columbia from Ipsos' online panel were interviewed
online. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the
sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data
and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of
Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is
accurate to within +/ - 5.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all parents in
BC been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the
population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error,
including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.