Ric Edelman, the chairman and founder of Edelman Financial Services, agreed that education was the best way to raise awareness of 529s, but argued that states and national organizations should target very specific venues: primary and secondary schools.

“Today, kids talk about college in elementary school,” says Edelman. “Parents are enrolling their children in preschool with an eye towards college. They’re already focusing on college at that age without any understanding of how to best save for it.”

Americans’ low awareness of 529s leaves them using taxable investment accounts or cash vehicles to cover educational expenses. Conducted in May, the Edward Jones survey found that savings accounts were the most popular vehicle for education savings, used by 42 percent of its 1,009 respondents. Scholarships and federal/state financial aid were also commonly used, each named by more than one-third of participants. Only 14 percent of the survey’s participants said that they were using 529 plans.

A recent study from TIAA finds even higher use of personal savings: Across all generations, savings accounts are the primary vehicle for setting aside education money, used by 62 percent of the respondents. Only 16 percent of the parents in TIAA’s survey used 529 accounts.

Millennials, the generation most likely to start saving for a child’s education in 2017, are also the most likely to use a personal savings account for those savings, according to Edward Jones.

“They are saving, they have a grasp on the importance of saving for education as well as retirement, but they’re not investing,” says Andersen. “Our viewpoint is that they should be doing both, and they should be using tax-advantaged accounts to do so.”

TIAA also found that millennials start earlier than their predecessors. Approximately one in three millennial respondents started saving at a child’s birth for education, compared with one in four respondents from Generation X and the baby boomers.

According to TIAA, 90 percent of Americans believe that parents should save for their children’s education, but many start too late. While 63 percent of TIAA’s respondents believed that saving for college education should start at a student’s birth, only 26 percent of parents start this early.

“We’re encouraged that younger people are starting to save early, but they lose most of the advantages of an early start when they use savings accounts,” says Boozer. “What good is saving for 18 years if the investment never grows? They’re losing money to inflation.”

While 80 percent of TIAA’s respondents said parents should start saving before their child turns 6 years old, only 46 percent begin saving before that age.