An RESP (Registered Education Savings Plan) is the account Canada uses to help you pay for your child's education — and the government puts money in alongside you. Through the Canada Education Savings Grant, Ottawa adds 20% of what you contribute, up to $500 CAD per year and $7,200 CAD over your child's lifetime. Lower-income families can receive up to $2,000 CAD more without contributing a single dollar.
September always brings the same conversation to my desk. The kids go back to school, the routine settles in, and parents start thinking about the bigger question: how are we going to pay for college? It is a fair worry. But before we talk about saving, there is something more urgent — there may already be money with your child's name on it that nobody has claimed.
An RESP is a registered account designed for one purpose: funding a child's post-secondary education — university, college, or trade school. It works on three levels:
Contributions are not tax-deductible, unlike an RRSP. The advantage here is not the deduction — it is the grant.
The Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG) is the core benefit, and the math is simple:
Put plainly: contribute $2,500 and the government hands you $500. There is no investment in Canada that reliably returns 20% the moment you make it. This one does, and it is guaranteed by legislation.
This is the part that genuinely frustrates me as an advisor. The Canada Learning Bond (CLB) gives up to $2,000 CAD to children from lower-income families — and you do not have to contribute anything to receive it. You only need to open an RESP.
Yet according to Government of Canada figures, of the 4.1 million children eligible for the Canada Learning Bond, only about 42.6% have ever received it. That means well over half of eligible families are leaving free money untouched — money already set aside for their children.
It is not because those families do not care. It is because nobody explained it to them in a language and in a way that made sense. That gap is exactly why I do this work bilingually.
Good news: grant room carries forward. If you did not contribute in previous years, that unused CESG room accumulates and you can catch up — up to $1,000 CAD of grant in a single year, by contributing $5,000 instead of $2,500.
But there is a limit to catching up: the grant stops the year your child turns 17. A parent who starts when their child is 14 simply cannot recover the full $7,200. Every year without contributing is a year of grant you cannot fully get back. This is the one place where waiting genuinely costs money.
According to Statistics Canada, average undergraduate tuition for Canadian students in the 2025/2026 academic year is $7,734 CAD per year — and that is tuition alone, before books, housing, transportation, or food.
A four-year degree therefore starts around $31,000 CAD, and that assumes your child studies close to home. If they move cities, the real number climbs considerably. Tuition has risen every year, so planning against today's figure is already optimistic.
A large part of my practice is families who arrived in Canada in the last few years. The pattern repeats almost every time: they are working hard, they are saving carefully, and they have no idea the RESP grants exist — or they assume it is something "for Canadians," not for them.
It is not. Once your child has a Social Insurance Number and is a resident of Canada, they qualify. I have sat with parents who discovered they had been eligible for years and never claimed a dollar. We cannot recover all of it, but we open the account that same week and start capturing what is still available.
Here is the question I ask every parent who opens an RESP with me, and it is rarely a comfortable one: the plan depends on your income, so what happens to it if your income stops?
An RESP is a savings vehicle, not a protection one. If a parent passes away, or a serious illness or injury stops them from working, the contributions simply stop — and the education fund freezes exactly when the family can least afford it. That is why a well-built education plan usually stands on two legs: the RESP itself, and enough life insurance or disability insurance to guarantee the plan keeps being funded no matter what happens to the parent.
For families who want education savings invested with guarantees and protected in the estate, segregated funds are often the right structure. You can also run the numbers yourself with our financial calculators.
Through the basic CESG, 20% of the first $2,500 CAD contributed each year — up to $500 CAD annually and $7,200 CAD over the child's lifetime. Lower-income families may also receive the Additional CESG and up to $2,000 CAD through the Canada Learning Bond.
Yes. What matters is that the child is a resident of Canada and has a Social Insurance Number. Your own immigration status does not disqualify your child from the grants.
Your own contributions always come back to you. Government grants must be returned to the government. The investment growth can be transferred to your RRSP if you have contribution room, or withdrawn with tax plus an additional penalty. There are also options such as transferring the plan to a sibling.
Partly. Unused grant room carries forward, and you can claim up to $1,000 CAD of grant in one year by contributing $5,000 CAD. But the grant ends the year your child turns 17, so starting late means some of it cannot be recovered.
For education specifically, the RESP usually wins because of the 20% grant — no TFSA return matches that. Many families use both. See our RRSP vs TFSA guide to understand how the registered accounts fit together.
Official sources: Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG) — Government of Canada · How much money can be added to RESPs — Government of Canada · Tuition fees for degree programs — Statistics Canada
Written by Yasmin Bedoya, Independent Insurance & Financial Advisor in Calgary, Alberta — serving families, newcomers, and business owners across Canada in English and Spanish.
This article is general educational information, not personalized financial advice. Rules, limits and income brackets change; always confirm on the official Government of Canada links above, or get advice for your own situation.
Not sure how much grant money your child still qualifies for? That is a 15-minute conversation, and it is free. I will check what is still available and what you would need to contribute to capture it — in English or Spanish.
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