It’s an age-old question—when should your clients cut the kids loose? Are they heading to the Caymans to avoid the death tax, or do they have a “spending the kids’ inheritance” bumper sticker on their Mercedes SUV?
A child’s education is just as contentious. Despite advice from the financial community that saving for retirement should trump paying for a child’s college education, nearly half of Americans disagree.
According to a recent poll from RBC Wealth Management, 49 percent of Americans place greater importance on helping their children pay for their education than they do on saving for their own retirement.
“As the cost of a college education in the U.S. continues to rise, parents will naturally want to help their kids get through school without accumulating a mountain of debt,” John Taft, CEO of RBC Wealth Management in the U.S, said in a statement. “But with the gap between how much Americans have saved and what they will need to retire comfortably widening, we advise that people make funding their own retirement a priority. There are no grants, scholarships, or federally guaranteed loans to support them when they leave the workforce.”
Millennials (ages 18 to 34) are the most likely to prioritize financing their children’s education ahead of their own retirement. In fact, 60 percent of Americans in that age group said saving for their kids’ education was more important to them, compared with 43 percent of GenXers (ages 35 to 54) and only 28 percent of Baby Boomers (ages 55 and older).
“These results likely also reflect both philosophical and practical differences between generations,” added Malia Haskins of the Wealth Strategies Group at RBC Wealth Management-U.S. “For Millennials, retirement is much farther away than the more immediate challenge of putting kids through college, so it makes sense that they would put retirement on the back burner. Baby Boomers tend to believe that children should be self-motivated and should have some skin in the game when paying for college. GenXers, meanwhile, are somewhere in the middle. They want to pay for most if not all of college costs for their children, but they also may be nearing retirement and wanting to balance the two goals.”
While saving for retirement should be the priority, by planning and setting realistic goals it is possible for many families to meet both objectives, Haskins says. Planning is especially critical for families with lower household incomes. According to the RBC Wealth Management survey, Americans with household incomes under $50,000 were the most likely (57 percent) to place saving for a child’s education ahead of their own retirement needs.
“Sometimes families find they can fund their retirement and still contribute to a child’s education,” Haskins concluded. “By looking ahead a little bit, it’s easier to get an overall sense of whether their goals are realistic.”
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
