Parents have been encouraged to consider opening a savings account for their children's university education costs.
Julie Hutchison, head of technical insight at Standard Life, said that parents are putting money away but that their "expectations of what that cost could be and therefore the target amount they want to save might actually be too low".
Meanwhile, the proportion of people who are saving money is exceeded by those who are not. While 21 per cent of parents are starting to make regular contributions to savings accounts for their children's future and 23 per cent are putting money aside on special occasions, a further 56 per cent of parents are not saving. Of these, 63 per cent state that they cannot afford to and ten per cent say they simply hadn't considered doing so.
Ms Hutchison suggested, "Parents can possibly identify where they can utilising a pre-existing payment that's coming to an end - this could be nursery fees, or a loan or credit card repayments. If they can continue to save this same amount it will allow them to make a saving towards their children's university debt, without impacting their own disposable income."
In terms of regions in the UK, people in the Midlands were most likely to be saving money for their children's university costs, while the north of England was the least likely area to be doing so.
