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A study from the MetLife Mature Institute found that 29 percent of grandparents have given their grandchildren financial support for education, spending an average of $8,276 over five years. Of those grandparents who did fund their grandchildren’s education, 32 percent helped with tuition or loan payments, 29 percent donated to a college savings plan, and 7 percent helped pay for graduate school.
“It seems to be a change from earlier generations where we all graduated from college and pretty much felt we were on our own,” said Sandra Timmermann, a gerontologist and the director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute. Timmermann noted that whereas people used to be concerned about leaving money for their children and grandchildren in their wills, there is now more of a tendency for that money to be given earlier.
When MetLife conducted a similar survey in 2009, it found that 26 percent of all grandparents helped pay for their grandchildren’s education, but of those, the largest proportion, 46 percent, put their money in a college fund. The 2009 survey, however, was administered only to grandparents with grandchildren 25 or younger, while the 2012 iteration surveyed all grandparents.
