Research summary - Canada Education Savings Grant and Canada Learning Bond Awareness

Official title of the report: Canada Education Savings Grant and Canada Learning Bond Awareness: Results from the 2020 Survey of Approaches to Educational Planning

Author of the report: Mohammad Chowdhury

Why this study

This research looks at whether Canadian parents know about government programs that can help them save for their children's post-secondary education (PSE). Its goal is to understand which parents are not aware of these programs.

What we did

This research used survey data to look at the differences in parents who know about these programs, and those who do not, based on traits like:

• family earnings
• education
• where they live, and
• age of their child

What we found

This study found that:

• awareness of some programs has increased since 2013 but awareness of others has decreased
• parents who knew about the programs were more likely to have a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) to save for their child's PSE
• some parents were more aware of the programs than others:
  • families with high household earnings were more likely to know about certain programs than families with lower earnings
  • parents with more PSE were more likely to know about all programs than parents with lower levels of education, and
  • awareness of programs depended on where parents lived, if they owned their home, and the age of their child

What it means

This research shows that parental awareness of how to save for a child's education is important. Savings can make access to PSE more possible for the child in the future. Attending PSE is important as the labour market continues to require various levels of PSE for certain positions.

Contact us

Learning Branch, Learning Policy and Services Directorate, Policy, Planning and Partnerships Division

Email: esdc.nc.sspb.research-recherche.dgpss.cn.edsc@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca