Westport, CT – Thursday, June 15, 2006 – A national poll of grandparents by the MetLife Mature Market Institute found that 55% are contributing financially to their grandchildren’s education. The MetLife Grandparents Poll, conducted by Zogby International, also found that of this group, 35% plan to provide a total of $50,000 or more over their lifetimes for the education of all their grandchildren. Forty percent of grandparents say they make no such financial contribution; 5% were unsure or did not answer.

On a per year basis, the data shows that 22% anticipate contributing up to $2,000 while 14% will provide between $2,000 and $5,000; 11% will give between $5,000 and $20,000. Only 4% say they will contribute $20,000 or more annually. Twenty-one percent contribute to a fund set up for their grandchildren’s college tuition while others help pay costs for all schooling, from pre-school through college.

"Of the millions of grandparents in the U.S., more than half, at all economic levels, are spending thousands of dollars to see their grandchildren through school," said Sandra Timmermann, Ed.D., director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute. "While they are providing financial help for their grandchildren, grandparents may also be helping their adult children and, in some cases, their parents, at a time when they, themselves, are retired or close to retirement," said Timmermann. "To adequately plan for the future, it will be increasingly important for grandparents to maintain a healthy balance between gifting and saving, so the money they do set aside for education doesn’t put their own retirement security in jeopardy."

The findings also revealed some differences about child rearing practices from generation to generation. The results show that nearly half (48%) of grandparents feel their grandchildren are being raised differently than how they raised their children. Forty-five percent say their children’s child-rearing practices mirror their own. Of the group who say there are differences, 54% say their offspring are more lenient with their grandchildren than they were as parents. Forty-three percent say their children give their grandchildren fewer household responsibilities than their children were given and 40% say their grandchildren have more opportunities than they provided to their children.

Among the poll’s other findings are that 3.5% of those over the age of 70 have at least one parent who is living. Of those between the ages of 55 and 69, 35.4% have a parent still living. The figure is 84.1% for those between 35 and 54.

Zogby International conducted online interviews of 3,371 adults online, 828 who had grandchildren under the age of 21. Panelists who had agreed to participate in Zogby polls online were invited to participate in the survey. The poll was conducted in late May. The margin of error is +/- 1.7 percentage points.

The MetLife Mature Market Institute is the company’s information and policy resource center on issues related to aging, retirement, long-term care and the mature market. The Institute, staffed by gerontologists, provides research, training and education, consultation and information to support Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, its corporate customers and business partners. MetLife, a subsidiary of MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET), is a leading provider of insurance and other financial services to individuals and institutional customers.

MetLife, a subsidiary of MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) is a leading provider of insurance and other financial services to millions of individual and institutional customers throughout the United States. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, MetLife, Inc. offers life insurance, annuities, automobile and homeowner’s insurance and retail banking services to individuals, as well as group insurance, reinsurance and retirement and savings products and services to corporations and other institutions. Outside the U.S., the MetLife companies have direct insurance operations in Asia Pacific, Latin America and Europe. For more information, please visit www.metlife.com.

A full report on the MetLife Grandparents Poll, can be found at: www.maturemarketinstitute.com under "What’s New."