The Dream & the Reality

The growing dream of the average American is to send his children to college. What about the hard reality? Last week, after a nationwide survey for the Ford Foundation, Pollster Elmo Roper summed up the aspirations and posed some nagging financial questions. Items:

P: 69% of all American children now under 18 will go to college,-if parental ambitions are realized. The expectation is highest in the mountain states (80%), lowest in New England (63%).

P: $1,450 per student is what parents figure as the median annual cost, and 16% estimate their total family bill as more than $19,000.

P: 67% of the parents say they will use savings, 41% anticipate scholarship, 29% will depend on income, 19% hope for loans. Some 28% expect their children to work part time.

P: The difficulty, says Roper, is that so few parents are doing any advance planning. The poll showed that 60% have not yet set up any savings plan--of these, 25% have had "no chance to think about it." The families who do have savings plans (40%) managed to save only a median $150 last year. At that rate, it will take them ten years to save enough for one year of college for one child--at current costs, and last year alone costs jumped 9.5%. Concludes Ford Foundation Vice President Clarence Faust: "American parents apparently need to know more about the economics of higher education."

* Compared to 21.4% of Americans aged 18 to 21 enrolled in colleges and universities last year.

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