College Savings Calculator
Enter your child's current age, today's annual tuition cost, an assumed tuition inflation rate, and your current savings to project the total future cost of a 4-year degree and the monthly savings needed to reach it.
How the College Savings formula works
Projecting tuition growth, then solving for a required monthly contribution:
Future annual tuition = Today's tuition × (1 + inflation)^years until college Total 4-year cost ≈ Future annual tuition × 4 (simplified, ignoring further inflation during enrollment) Monthly savings needed = (Total cost − Current savings) / months until college
Step-by-step calculation
- Calculate how many years remain until college using the child's current age.
- Grow today's tuition cost forward by the inflation rate for that many years.
- Multiply by 4 for an estimated total 4-year cost.
- Subtract current savings from the total cost, then divide by the number of months remaining to find the monthly savings target.
Worked example
A child is 8, with 10 years until college. Today's annual tuition is $25,000, growing at 5% inflation: Future annual tuition ≈ 25,000 × 1.05^10 ≈ $40,722. Total 4-year cost ≈ $162,890. With $15,000 already saved, the remaining $147,890 divided across 120 months ≈ $1,232/month.
Frequently asked questions
Does this account for investment growth on savings, not just contributions?
This simplified version doesn't factor in investment returns on the savings themselves — for a projection that includes compound growth on contributions, the Savings Goal Calculator can be used with the total cost from this calculator as the target.
Why does tuition inflation matter so much?
College costs have historically risen faster than general inflation in many cases, so even a modest annual increase compounds significantly over a decade or more — underestimating this rate is a common reason college savings plans fall short.