Project how much college will cost by the time enrollment starts, using a cost-inflation rate that can run hotter than everyday inflation.

How to Use the College Cost Calculator

Enter today's annual cost, how many years until enrollment starts, how many years the student will be enrolled, an expected college-cost inflation rate, current savings, and the return you expect that savings to earn. The result is a total projected cost across every enrolled year and the flat monthly deposit needed to cover whatever your current savings won't.

College costs have historically climbed faster than general inflation, which is why this tool asks for its own inflation rate rather than reusing a generic CPI figure — each enrolled year is projected separately, at the cost that specific year is expected to have reached, not just the first year's cost repeated four times.

Year i Cost = Current Annual Cost × (1 + Cost Inflation Rate)^(Years Until Enrollment + i)
Total Projected Cost = sum of every enrolled year's cost

Current savings gets a head start of its own: it compounds at the expected return for every month between now and enrollment, and whatever it grows to is subtracted from the total before the monthly deposit gets worked out — so the number you're asked to save reflects only the gap that savings won't already close.

Future Savings = Current Savings × (1 + monthly return)^(months until enrollment)
Required Monthly Deposit = (Total Projected Cost − Future Savings) ÷ Annuity Factor

Run the defaults — $25,000 a year today, 10 years out, 4 years enrolled, 5% cost inflation, $5,000 saved already, 6% expected return — and the four enrolled years add up to $175,518.49 in total. The $5,000 already saved is projected to grow to just $9,096.98 by then, leaving $1,015.51 a month as the deposit needed to close the rest of the gap. Ten years sounds like plenty of runway; a 5% annual climb in the underlying cost eats most of the advantage a decade should provide.