Report Documents Family Differences in Saving for College

A new federal study shows great variation by race in the degree to which parents of would-be college students are saving for their children's postsecondary costs. The study, which provides data from a longitudinal study of American ninth graders, shows that among those students whose parents expected them to enter postsecondary education and who planned to help pay for their education, 41 percent of the parents of Asian-American ninth graders and 23 percent of the parents of white ninth graders reported saving more than $25,000 for their child's postsecondary education, compared to 12 percent of the parents of black ninth graders and 8 percent of the parents of Latino ninth graders.