Due to the hard economic times and increasing cost of tuition, parents are uneasy about the cost of higher education and how they will help their children pay for college, according to an education research advocacy group’s survey.

Public Agenda, an education research advocacy group, found 77 percent of parents who are struggling financially are “very worried” about how they will pay for their child’s education, making it the number one personal financial concern, according to the survey.

Scott Bittle, executive vice president of Public Agenda, added parents are more concerned now than they have been in the past about how to pay for college.

In 2003, 31 percent of parents said they thought college education was essential to economic success, the survey said. In 2009, 55 percent thought college education was essential.

“In order to stay on the economic ladder, a college education is required,” Bittle said.

The survey examined 1,004 adults in order to access middle class concerns and to get a sense of how many families are struggling financially, Bittle said.

People have shown an increasing amount of concern with the cost of higher education even though only four in 10 Americans find themselves struggling due to the economy, Bittle said.

Bittle added that parents express concern about higher education costs because it’s something they want to be able to help their children with, but they struggle even if they are in a stable financial situation.

The cost of higher education is a concern for both the financially struggling and the financially stable, Bittle said.

“Parents don’t want to burden their students with loan debt,” associate director of Student Financial Services at the University of Wisconsin, Michelle Curtis, said .

Many people at the UW are getting grants, but grant money is often not enough for student to support themselves and their education, Curtis said.

The UW does not have enough money and resources to help all the families that are struggling, but they are doing a better job than in past years, Curtis said.

However, there is still some skepticism among parents over whether colleges are doing all they can to help students, and it does not help that tuition rates have increased nationally over the past few years, according to Bittle.

“The public is trying to tell you something, and they should be listened to,” Bittle said.