from the Dallas Fed
College is an investment that generally yields benefits over a student’s lifetime in the form of higher wages, more stable employment and better benefits. Typically, parents want to help their children with college costs, but they don’t always have enough savings to do so.
Since the 1950s, federal government student loan programs have encouraged postsecondary education. More recently, federal assistance for parents wanting to help their children with college costs came in the form of the federal Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students (PLUS) program. It was created in 1980 and assists parents who are borrowing for their offspring’s college expenses.
Parents have increasingly taken out PLUS loans, with the average amounts borrowed growing.1 The parent loan default rate remains low, though signs of it increasing have appeared.
Parents’ repayment behavior differs from that of students, with parent borrowers presenting their own benefits and risks. Parent borrowers tend to have more experience dealing with debt and more realistic expectations for repayment than students. At the same time, parents say taking on loans for their children may affect their ability to save for retirement and undertake major purchases.
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Source
https://www.dallasfed.org/~/media/documents/research/swe/2018/swe1803e.pdf