Less than half of families feel confident about paying for their college-bound children's education
Washington, DC, February 14, 2022 – The 2022 Sallie Mae/Ipsos College Confidence: What America knows about paying for college report underlines the value students and families place in a college education, but gaps in understandings of how to fund that education.
Detailed findings:
- Nearly three-quarters of families (74%) report that they have already started thinking about how they will fund their child’s post-secondary education by the time the child is a high school junior, awareness of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is relatively limited. Less than half of college-bound families (44%) are familiar with FAFSA, which is a key piece of applying for federal grants, work-study programs, and college loans.
- Close to half of families (45%) believe that scholarships are only available for students with exceptional grades or abilities.
- Just over half of families (54%) are familiar with financial aid offers from colleges and universities, but 37% of them do not know what information is included in these offers.
- Although close to half (47%) of college-bound families plan to borrow to fund their childrens’ education, many are unclear on what types of aid must be paid back. Less than half of college-bound families correctly identified direct subsidized loans (47%), direct unsubsidized loans (46%), and the Parent PLUS loans (41%) as funds that needs to be repaid.
METHODOLOGY
Ipsos conducted the Sallie Mae College Confidence survey online in English between Thursday, August 19, 2021, and Monday, September 20, 2021. Ipsos interviewed 1,135 individuals: 550 parents of 16-18-year-old students planning to continue their education, and 585 16 to 18-year-old students with plans to continue their education beyond high school. This includes 395 dyad interviews with parents and teens.
Sample Design
For this study, Ipsos targeted households with children currently in high school and between the ages of 16-18 years old. The survey participants were divided into three groups:
- Parent sample – Parents with a child in high school aged 16-18 years old were asked to complete the survey.
- Student sample – Parents were contacted and asked to consent to the student completing the survey if the child was under 18 years old then pass the survey to the student.
- Dyad sample - Parents were contacted and asked to complete the survey then consent to the student completing the survey if the child was under 18 years old and pass the survey to the student.
The survey was conducted using KnowledgePanel, the largest and most well-established online probability-based panel that is representative of the adult US population. Our recruitment process employs a scientifically developed addressed-based sampling methodology using the latest Delivery Sequence File of the USPS – a database with full coverage of all delivery points in the US. Households invited to join the panel are randomly selected from all available households in the U.S. Persons in the sampled households are invited to join and participate in the panel.
Weighting
Eligible parents are parents with at least one 16 to 18-year-old child in the 11th or 12th grade and plan to attend college after high school based on screening data. All parents were weighted to represent the full adult population with 16-18-year-old children in the household. Weighting variables for parents include age, gender, race-ethnicity, Census region, metropolitan status, education, and household income. Dyad parents were weighted to match eligible parents.
An eligible teen is a respondent who is 16 to 18 years old and in the 11th or 12th grade and plans to attend college after high school. Weighting variables for students include age, gender, Census region, metropolitan status, and household income. Dyad students were weighted to match eligible students.
The needed benchmarks were obtained from the 2019 American Community Survey (ACS), except for metropolitan status, which is not available from the 1-year ACS, were obtained from the 2020 March Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS).
Margin of Error
The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level for parents and students combined, parents, plus or minus 5.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level for plus or minus 5.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level for for students.
The margin of sampling error takes into account the design effect, which was 1.66 for parents and students combined, 1.92 for parents, and 1.65 for students. The margin of sampling error is higher and varies for results based on other sub-samples. In our reporting of the findings, percentage points are rounded off to the nearest whole number. As a result, percentages in a given table column may total slightly higher or lower than 100%. In questions that permit multiple responses, columns may total substantially more than 100%, depending on the number of different responses offered by each respondent.
About Ipsos
Ipsos is the world’s third largest Insights and Analytics company, present in 90 markets and employing more than 18,000 people.
Our passionately curious research professionals, analysts and scientists have built unique multi-specialist capabilities that provide true understanding and powerful insights into the actions, opinions and motivations of citizens, consumers, patients, customers or employees. We serve more than 5000 clients across the world with 75 business solutions.
Founded in France in 1975, Ipsos is listed on the Euronext Paris since July 1st, 1999. The company is part of the SBF 120 and the Mid-60 index and is eligible for the Deferred Settlement Service (SRD).
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