College Savings Goal Calculator

As a national-average illustration, a 4-year cost of attendance (tuition, fees, housing, food, books) currently runs on the order of $120,000 at a public in-state university, roughly $195,000 out-of-state, and about $250,000 at a private nonprofit — with enormous variation by school and by financial aid. The 18-years-away number depends almost entirely on the inflation rate you assume: at 5% annual college inflation, today's $120,000 becomes about $289,000 by the time a newborn starts college. That multiplication is exactly what the calculator models, and why starting the monthly habit early matters more than its size.

Because college costs have historically risen faster than general inflation — often by a couple of percentage points a year — and the gap compounds over an 18-year horizon. Planning with ordinary inflation, or none, quietly understates the target by six figures for a newborn. It is the single assumption that most changes your answer, which is why this calculator gives it its own slider: try 3%, 5%, and 7% and watch the required monthly figure move. Recent years have seen milder increases than the long-run average, so reasonable people can pick different rates — the point is to pick one deliberately.

Not necessarily — and for many families a deliberate partial target is the more honest plan. Financial aid, scholarships, the student's own work, and reasonable borrowing routinely cover part of the bill, and a family that saves half the cost has done most of the heavy lifting. The coverage slider exists so a 50% or 70% goal produces a realistic monthly number instead of a discouraging one. One caution from the broader planning world: retirement savings can be borrowed against or delayed less easily than college costs can be trimmed, so avoid funding a 100% college goal by starving your own retirement.

The calculator defaults to 6% a year — a deliberately moderate long-run planning assumption for a diversified, stock-heavy portfolio, and the same default our other calculators use. It is an estimate, not a promise: real markets deliver lumpy returns, and most families shift college money toward safer, lower-returning investments as the start date approaches (age-based 529 portfolios do this automatically), which argues for testing the slider a point or two lower rather than higher. If the plan only works at 9%, it is not a plan.

Often, for an education goal — earnings grow federally tax-free, qualified withdrawals are untaxed, and many states add a deduction — but it is a genuine decision, not a default. The account choice involves control, financial-aid treatment, and what happens if plans change, and that comparison is a separate tool's whole job: once you have your monthly number here, our 529 vs UTMA Comparator projects the same contribution in both account types side by side and walks through the trade-offs. This calculator stays deliberately account-agnostic — the number it produces works in either.

Save what you can — a partly funded goal is dramatically better than an unfunded one, and the gap-check input on the calculator shows exactly what your affordable amount achieves (at $300 a month against a $746 target, you are still building roughly 40% of the goal). Practical levers, roughly in order: start now rather than waiting for spare income, step contributions up with raises, lower the coverage target to something honest, direct windfalls and gift money at the account, and let grandparents contribute directly. Eighteen years leaves a lot of room for a plan that starts small.

No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser and stores nothing on our servers. Your inputs are only reflected in the page's web address so you can bookmark or share your result — clear the link and they are gone.