In their search for easy touches, colleges and lenders are finding parents.

The Wall Street Journal reports that private lenders like Sallie Mae are marketing, and colleges are promoting, the idea that parents should take out loans to send their children to college. Until now, for the most part, students are the ones who borrow and who must pay.

“There’s an opportunity to expand our reach,” Charles Rocha, chief marketing officer at Sallie Mae, told the Journal.

An attraction for parents is that they don’t have to pay an upfront fee that the Department of Education requires for its “ParentPlus” loans. One of the attractions for colleges is that private loans to parents don’t get into the government’s per-college calculation of average debt upon graduation. The colleges look more affordable, because the average debt is understated.

And, of course, they can continue to push up tuition.