Tertiary Education Saving Patterns among Malaysian Parents

Abstract

While tertiary education provides many benefits to the individual, the community and the nation, we cannot deny that the cost is high and continues to rise each year. The younger generation have to take up loans to finance their study costs and then they have to pay back the loans after completing their studies. As such, the funds from the parents can be seen as an alternative which could help in realizing the tertiary education goal. The question is, do the parents realize and know the importance of tertiary education savings? Have they saved for their children’s education? How much do they save per month? Are the savings enough for their children’s university education? What is the savings medium utilized to make savings? Therefore, this paper focuses on two main objectives. The first objective is to identify the patterns of children's tertiary education savings among parents in Malaysia and the second objective is to determine the medium of saving used by parents to save their money. The findings indicated that all the respondents knew and realized the importance of tertiary education savings for their children or those under their care. The majority of parents in the low income and high-income groups did not make any savings while those in the medium income group did save with a mean amount of RM755 per month. Additionally, all respondents who had saved for tertiary education agreed that their funds would not be enough to cover all the expenses. Some savings mediums had been utilized for the tertiary education fund such as banks, Tabung Haji and Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad (ASNB) and others. To encourage the saving habit, all parties including parents, the government, banks and others should play their part so that the children’s tertiary education process would be a smooth, fuss-free journey.