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If your child is starting high school next month, you may think you have time to start planning financially for their post-secondary education. The truth is, you are already late.

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The government agreed in 1998 to match 20 per cent of every dollar put into an RESP plan through the CESG: contribute $2,500 per year, and you can get $500 that goes into the tax-sheltered vehicle for education savings.

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But you can only catch up on one missed annual limit at a time, meaning the maximum you can collect in a year is $1,000 in grant money based on a $5,000 contribution. Four years of high school isn’t enough time to collect the maximum grant per child.

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“You’ve got up until the end of the year when the child turns 17 (to contribute), but around the age of 10, you start to run out of ramp,” said Peter Lewis, the president and chief executive of CST Savings Inc., a group RESP company that has been around for about 60 years. “Don’t forget the power of compounding; the earlier you get the money in, the longer it has to grow.’

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You have to wonder how much Canadians are missing out on free money because of a lack of knowledge.

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The general idea behind the RESP is that when you do eventually take the taxable money out, it will be in the hands of a full-time student who will be at a low enough marginal rate to pay little or no tax.

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A survey Lewis’ group recently did found 80 per cent of Canadians are familiar with tax-free savings accounts, but only two-thirds know about RESPs.

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The same poll found that 45 per cent of parents surveyed, including those with children over 18, wished they had started saving earlier. Only half of the parents in the survey have even opened an RESP.

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The online survey conducted by Earnscliffe on behalf of CST was done from July 2 to 13, 2026, with a sample of 1,500 respondents living in Canada aged 18 or older. A poll of that size is considered accurate to within 2.53 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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The Canada Learning Bond, which can contribute up to $2,000 for low-income households with incomes under around $60,000, was not directly part of the survey. But the federal government’s most recent survey found that just 44 per cent of eligible children are participating.

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It’s a remarkably low rate, considering it’s free and requires no contribution. You get $500 for just opening the account and $100 per year per child until they are 15. The money goes into an RESP.

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“It’s better than it was a decade ago. But to only have 44 per cent receive it, that feels like an awareness issue,” said Lewis, noting that CST has found once an RESP is opened to receive the bond, low-income parents tend to start putting their own money in, too. “They just find a way,” he said.