Parents are struggling to save for both retirement and college

To pay for their children's education, many parents find that something else has got to give. And that "something" is often retirement.

The Society of Actuaries conducted a study of Americans saving for both their own retirement and another person's college education — in 93% of cases, their children's — and its findings are troubling. More than half of the respondents — 58% — said they were retiring later than planned, and 41% said they had withdrawn money from their own retirement funds to pay for the relative's tuition.

"More and more, we're seeing that a proportion of people are dipping into their retirement savings, sometimes at the risk of a tax penalty for early withdrawal, to help pay for college," said R. Dale Hall, the managing director of research at the Society of Actuaries Research Institute.

The study underlines a difficult reality of American life: Both retirement and higher education are highly expensive in the United States. Today the average tuition at a private college is $39,723, according to the U.S. News & World Report. And, on average, Americans estimate that it will cost them $1.27 million to comfortably retire — a number that has steadily risen for the past three years, the insurer Northwestern Mutual found in its latest annual "Planning and Progress" study.

For many financial advisors, the clash between these two savings goals is all too familiar.

"I have had clients in this predicament," said John Bovard, the founder of Incline Wealth Advisors in Cincinnati, Ohio. "They have chosen to pay the education expenses and did not save as much as they should have for retirement. This has caused them to work later than most — age 70."

Melissa Cox, a certified financial planner at Fetterman Investments in Dallas, Texas, said her clients who were caught in this bind also had to contend with a third expense: their own student debt.

"This is increasingly common," Cox said. "We are in an interesting period where families haven't been able to save a lot for college or retirement, because they are still paying their own student loans."

To balance these different costs, Americans are taking drastic measures. Forty percent of the  respondents in the Society's survey said they were taking out loans to save for college and retirement, and 16% were borrowing money from family or friends. Meanwhile, 39% of respondents were working longer hours and 26% took on additional jobs.

And it's not just the savers themselves who are forced to make sacrifices; it's also the people they're saving for. In many cases, the children and other relatives who go to college using that money have to compromise on some aspect of their education: 40% had to attend a public, local school rather than a private or out-of-state one, and 35% had to choose a two-year community college. In more extreme cases, 12% had to postpone going to college altogether.

"The downstream impact there is it leads to a lot more limited or different choices" for the students, Hall said. "So the primary impact and secondary impact are both concerning, and we want to try to find better ways to solve those issues."

That's where financial advisors can come in. Wealth managers whose clients are facing this struggle can steer them toward better solutions — ones that don't involve skimping on their retirement or their children's education. The most important point to communicate, many advisors say, is that there are more flexible options for college than there are for retirement.

"My advice is always to save for their own retirement first," Bovard said. "I tell them that your children can take out a loan for college, but you cannot take out a loan for retirement."

Even aside from loans, financial planners can point clients toward resources they may not have thought of.

Read more: 3 strategies to help clients with student debt after the Supreme Court's decision

"The cost of higher education can be made easier to stomach," said Charlie Pastor, a CFP in Fort Collins, Colorado and a contributor to The Motley Fool Ascent. "Scholarships and grants are much more accessible for today's students than ever before."

Of course, prioritizing one's own retirement can be difficult for parents who cherish their children's futures. But the consequences for failing to save for retirement are often harsher than failing to do so for college. Pulling money from a 401(k), for example, can trigger both taxes and penalty fees, and the assets that are liquidated miss out on years of compounding.

"Ultimately, it's important to keep your goals in perspective and seek efficiency in the long run," Pastor said. "As they say on the airplane, 'Secure your oxygen mask first before helping those around you.'"