College Savings Calculator

Saving for a child's education is a compound growth problem with an unusually firm deadline, and the deadline is what makes it different from open-ended investing.

Two forces work against each other. Time is on your side — an account opened at birth has around eighteen years to compound, and early contributions do far more work than late ones. Working against you is that education costs have historically risen faster than general inflation in many countries, so the target itself moves upward while you save. Planning against today's published costs understates what will actually be required; the projection should inflate the target.

The firm deadline should change your allocation as it approaches. A portfolio appropriate at birth is not appropriate at sixteen, because a market decline in the final years leaves no time to recover before the money is needed. Many education-specific savings products handle this automatically with age-based allocation that shifts toward lower-volatility holdings as enrolment nears. If you are managing it yourself, that glide path is the part most worth copying.

Tax-advantaged education accounts differ substantially by country and, in the US, by state — contribution treatment, qualified expenses, and the consequences of non-qualified withdrawal all vary. Check the specific rules where you live before committing, particularly what happens to unused funds.

One order-of-operations point that is easy to get wrong: retirement generally comes first. Education can be funded through loans, scholarships, work, and part-time study. Retirement cannot be borrowed for. Underfunding retirement to fully fund education often shifts a larger burden onto the same child later. Everything runs in your browser — no login, no upload, and no figure you enter leaves the page.