Credit Sesame surveyed a sample of our members, who are parents, to find out just how frequently they talk to their college-age children about money. We then analyzed the parents’ credit scores to determine if those with good credit, fair credit, or poor credit are more or less worried about their kids being in debt from student loans.
Do parents with poor credit scores stress out more often about money?
In our study, we discovered that regardless of credit scores, 9 out of 10 parents talked about money-related topics with their kids. But those with poor scores tended to discuss it more frequently within a one week period — almost twice as much as those with good credit scores did.
Who had the most student loans to tackle?
Those in the poor credit score group faced the most number of student loans (61%), and surprisingly, had the highest number of parents cosign for the loans (50%), as well.
Parents with fair and good credit did not cosign as much for their kids — which may lead us to believe that parents who fall in this credit score range are more wary about taking the cosigning responsibilities for their kids.
Do parents with poor scores have a lot more to worry about?
Parents with good credit scores were the least worried about their kids incurring student loan debt (22%), while those with poor scores were the most worried (35%). Parents with low credit scores may have more to worry about — improving their credit scores, their kids debt, and if they cosigned, they need to be concerned about how their child will manage to pay back the loan, as this will inevitably affect their scores.
