College Savings (529) Calculator
Where you stand
Three fields. Everything is in today's dollars, and the college target is a real, sourced number — not a scare figure.
0 works — starting at birth is the cheapest college plan there is
No account yet? Leave it at 0
How we calculate this
Everything is in today's dollars. The projection uses a real (inflation-adjusted) return — 6.9% by default, the same NYU Stern historical figure our FIRE and retirement tools use — with annual compounding and end-of-year contributions. That requires contributions held constant in today's dollars (rising with inflation in nominal terms), which we state rather than bury. It's the same engine as our retirement projection, deliberately: one implementation, one set of conventions.
About the college number. The default target is four years of in-state public sticker price — $25,850 a year of tuition, fees, housing, and food per the College Board's Trends in College Pricing 2025-26 — the same sourced figure our life insurance tool uses for its education fund. Sticker is the honest planning ceiling, not the typical bill: most families pay meaningfully less after grants and aid. If you expect aid, or a pricier school, edit the target.
Holding the target flat is an assumption, and we label it. A constant today's-dollars target assumes college costs rise with general inflation. The past decade of College Board data actually supports that — real published prices have been roughly flat to declining — but it reverses the older runaway-tuition era. If you believe costs will outrun inflation again, raise the target.
Why a 529 at all: growth and qualified withdrawals are federally tax-free (IRC §529(a), (c)(3)(B)). What we don't model: your state's tax deduction or credit for contributions — over 30 states and D.C. offer one and it can be worth hundreds a year, but the rules are 50 different tables. Check your state's plan first; it's usually the right one to use when a deduction exists.
Real scenarios
Age 3, $400 a month, $5,000 saved: fully covered
Fifteen years of $400/mo on top of a $5,000 balance at 6.9% real grows to $133,297 by 18 — the $5,000 becomes $13,603 and the contributions build to $119,694. That covers the full $103,400 sticker target with $29,897 to spare. Compounding does 42% of the work: only $77,000 of that balance is money you put in.
Starting at 8 instead: 67% covered — and that's a plan, not a failure
The same discipline started later — age 8, $300/mo, $10,000 already saved — reaches $68,993 by 18: 67% of sticker, a $34,407 gap. Before panicking, remember the target is sticker price; after typical grants and aid, many families' real bill lands near what this projection covers. The honest move is running your actual numbers, not tripling the contribution out of fear.
The newborn special: $250 a month nearly does it all
From birth to 18 at $250/mo with nothing saved: $101,023 — 98% of the sticker target — and only $54,000 of it came out of your pocket. Eighteen years of compounding is the cheapest college financing that exists. This is why the right month to open a 529 is the one on the birth certificate.