As parents, we all have the things we give up just cause of our kids; we understand the sacrifices we need to make to keep our family together. Many American families forgo meals, new gadgets ad even new clothes just to pay for the children’s college education. A survey found out that lower-income parents with school-age children face more challenges than those with higher incomes when it comes to finding affordable, high-quality after-school activities and programs.
It is obvious that the dramatic changes that have taken place in family living arrangements have no doubt contributed to the growing share of children living at the economic margins. However regardless of how we parents see ourselves, we care a lot about how others perceive our parenting skills. We borrow for our children’s education in a lot of ways. A common way is to take out student loans themselves – loans that are taken out in the parent’s name to be used for their child’s education. Asides from these types of loans, we sometimes take out private student loans as well.
Once again, in most cases these are in the parent’s name, or the parent is a cosigner on the student loan. Either way, the parent is 100% accountable for the debt.
Some parents even resort to taking out home equity loans to pay for their children’s education. Instead of having a student loan, we parents use the equity in our home to pay for college education. While this may seem helpful in the short term, there are complications financially when using this method. Hence the need for us to cut back some basic things like eating out, going on a shopping spree and some other things that would qualify as luxuries just to support our children’s college education.
With so many household bills mounting up, many American families are starting to forgo things they once enjoyed to be able to afford, specifically healthcare for their family and possibly saving for their child’s future college education. An online coupon and money saving website coupondash decided to investigate to discover what families have cut out, whether they still enjoy meals out or go on vacations, or if buying new things is an opportunity that has gone out of the window.
To find out where families feel the pinch, Coupon Dash surveyed over 1000 families in the US by asking: “What have you had to cut back or forgo to be able to afford healthcare for your family and save to pay for your children’s college education?” Respondents could choose from a list as well as add their own responses.
Many American families have sacrificed a lot to pay for escalating healthcare costs and tuition fees for their children as seen below:
- Meals out 52%
- Gadgets 49%
- New clothes 48%
- Days out 43%
- Vacations 34%
- Takeaways 26%
Over to you, what sacrifices have you made for your children’s college education and also comment on how you feel this has been expensive.
