TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwire) -- 11/21/12 -- Stocking stuffers can be more than just trinkets and candy canes this holiday season. Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs) are becoming an increasingly popular gift from parents and grandparents. Still, over half of Canadian families don't save in an RESP. To help, Canadian Scholarship Trust Foundation (CST) is providing the top 10 reasons why giving an RESP makes sense:

1.  An RESP can ease the burden of the cost associated with higher learning.
    Statistics Canada projects the price of a 4-year university education to
    be more than $145,000 if they choose to live away from home, including
    room and board, entertainment and book costs. 
2.  An RESP can help a child get an education. Your child is 40 per cent
    more likely to get a post-secondary education if they have an RESP
    according to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada's Annual
    Statistical Review of the Canada Education Savings Program, 2009. 
3.  An RESP can help your child get a job. Two out of three new jobs in
    Canada require a post-secondary education according to the Council of
    Ontario Universities. 
4.  An RESP can help avoid student debt. On average, graduating students can
    have education related debt levels ranging from $13,600 to $25,600
    according to Statistics Canada. 
5.  An RESP can help give your child a financial head start on life. It
    takes most Canadians 10 years to pay off their student loans according
    to the Canada Student Loan Program. 
6.  An RESP can help to take advantage of money from the government. The
    Government of Canada provides various grants to encourage families to
    save with an RESP, including the Canada Education Savings Grant and the
    Canada Learning Bond. Province such as Alberta, Quebec and Saskatchewan
    (Jan 2013) also have similar programs. 
7.  An RESP can help a child own a home in the future. Post-Secondary
    graduates who rely on a student loan to pay for their education were
    less likely to own their homes, according to Statistics Canada, and when
    they did, they were slightly more likely to have a mortgage compared to
    other post-secondary graduates. 
8.  An RESP can help your child succeed financially as an adult. According
    to the 2005 Survey of Financial Security, post-secondary graduates with
    student loans had, on average, lower assets and correspondingly lower
    net worth than those who did not have student loans. 
9.  An RESP can help minimize student stress levels. Post-Secondary students
    say that paying for school is causing more stress than achieving success
    academically. The annual survey, conducted by Pollara for BMO, found
    one-quarter (27 per cent) are very stressed about paying for school -
    more so than finding a job after graduation (22 per cent) or achieving
    success academically (20 per cent). 
10. An RESP can help a child succeed in their academic studies. Studies have
    found a negative impact on academic performance after 15-20 hours of
    paid work per week. A white paper from Concordia University titled
    'Rethinking Student Debt', shows 70 per cent of students receiving
    Quebec financial aid reported difficulty balancing both work and school.

"RESPs are a simple and effective way to give your children a jump start when it comes time to enroll in post-secondary education," says Peter Lewis, vice president and spokesperson with Canadian Scholarship Trust Foundation, one of Canada's leading RESP providers. "We always advise families to start an RESP soon after their child is born and to save regularly."

For more information on RESPs or to arrange an interview with Peter Lewis please contact Edyta McKay at 416-606-2849 or Edyta.McKay@cst.org.

About CST

The Canadian Scholarship Trust Foundation is a non-profit organization that has been helping families save for post-secondary education for over fifty years. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Foundation, C.S.T. Consultants Inc. (CSTC) is the distributor and manager of the Canadian Scholarship Trust Plans. Focused exclusively on growing and protecting its planholders' savings, CSTC currently manages $3.7 billion in assets for over 280,000 Canadian families. CSTC boasts a sales force of 640 located across the country. The Canadian Scholarship Trust Foundation offers its own awards for academic achievement and community engagement to those students in their Group Plans who are pursuing graduate studies. For more information about RESPs at CST go to www.cst.org.