Most parents are “blind” to the cost of their children’s tuition, according to a CIBC poll.
The poll found that roughly 75 per cent of parents could not “seem to grasp the actual cost of tuition,” while almost 40 per cent did not know what to budget for non-tuition costs such as books and living expenses, according to a CIBC press release.
Three quarters of parents surveyed either underestimated, overestimated, or did not know the actual costs of tuition. Only about 20 per cent of parents were able to correctly estimate the cost of tuition between $6,000 and $9,999.
Additionally, nearly 20 per cent of parents thought their children could get by on a $500 per month budget, despite the poll finding that the mean estimate for non-tuition expenses cost $1,333 per month.
“With parents not really knowing what the costs are, it’s not surprising that so many students end up treating their parents like ATMs once they’re in school,” Kathleen Woodward, CIBC senior vice-president of retail and business banking at CIBC, said in the press release.
Nicole Lauzon, a recent Carleton University graduate, said in an email that the statistics do not surprise her.
“Most parents and adults don’t understand why they were able to work part time and go to school without large sums of debt,” Lauzon said. “The price of tuition, living, and resources has gone up since our parents have attended university/college, and it seems that the changes don’t register with them.”
“My parents had an idea of costs from their time at university, but I don’t think they were truly prepared. My first year alone was over $20,000,” she added.
Karen Saylors, whose daughter graduated from Carleton this year, said the costs of education have “absolutely surprised” her, especially after hearing from other parents.
“My [neighbour’s] daughter just graduated last year, [and] that kid is $70,000 in debt,” Saylors said.
She said she didn’t do any formal budgeting, but had some idea of how much tuition would cost for her daughter.
“I certainly was aware from my brother’s family that I was looking at roughly $20,000 a year. I thought that’s a lot of money, we [had] best get moving on this,” Saylors said.
Saylors added her daughter pursued internships in other provinces, which led to unexpected costs.
“When she was at the internships, she couldn’t work at her part time jobs. So on top of accommodation and travel to her internships, she could not work,” Saylors said.
Lauzon said she was “lucky” to have parents who saved a large sum of their own money towards her education, but she said it did not cover everything.
“We found the estimates given by universities we toured to be much lower than the actual costs, so when payment time came around we were thrown off,” she said.
