Parents are underestimating the costs involved in supporting their offspring through their university years, a study has found.

As a result, not enough have built up the level of savings required to see them comfortably through those years, independent financial advisers Best Advice Financial Planning have found.

A spokesman for the firm said it was rare to find situations where families had implemented a regular savings plan to finance university education.

The company found that there is instead a tendency to divert any immediately available spare capital to the costs of higher education, although this approach was more difficult for those lower down the economic ladder.

"Parents are either just spending less on other things while their child is at university or they are eating into their savings, which obviously isn't good," the spokesman explained.

Parents in a tight financial squeeze might be interested to know that the Council of Mortgage Lenders says a homeowner loan can be a "sensible" way of dealing with debt problems.

The body notes that consumers often use such loans as a mechanism to repay more expensive borrowing - such as credit cards - with lower-interest mortgage money.

© Adfero Ltd