529 College Savings Calculator
Project a 529 plan from birth to enrollment: starting balance, monthly saving and growth, measured against the cost goal you set — with the gap or surplus stated plainly.
Eighteen years is a long compounding runway
Few savings goals are announced as early as college, which is precisely their power: a 529 opened at birth gets nearly two decades of compounding before its first bill. This calculator projects the fund and holds it against the cost goal you set — the gap, if any, stated in plain figures while there is time to close it.
Projected savings = balance + monthly deposits, compounded monthly to the enrollment year
Example: $10,000 at birth, $250 a month at 6% for 18 years: deposits total $64,000 and the fund projects to about $126,000 — growth contributed roughly as much as the later deposits did. Waiting until age 8 to start the identical habit lands near $66,000; the decade is the difference.
The goal is a guess — set it honestly anyway
College costs have inflated faster than general prices for decades, and the range between a public in-state degree and a private one is enormous. Pick the scenario you are actually aiming at, revisit the goal as the child (and the college market) reveals itself, and remember unused 529 money is no longer a dead end under current rollover rules.
How this is calculated
Monthly compounding at the entered return, deposits at month end — the same engine as the investment calculator, aimed at a dated goal. Tax treatment: 529 growth and qualified education withdrawals are federally tax-free in the US; state deductions and rules vary, and none of that layer is modeled — the projection is the fund's size, not its tax file.
Frequently asked questions
What if my child doesn't go to college?
The beneficiary can be changed to another family member, funds can serve K-12 and apprenticeship costs within limits, and — under current US rules — a portion can roll to the beneficiary's Roth IRA after the account has been open 15 years, subject to caps. The money is far from trapped.
How much should the goal be?
Published cost-of-attendance figures for your target type (public in-state, public out-of-state, private) times the years of the degree, grown at an education-inflation assumption, is the standard construction. The form takes the goal as one number — build it with that recipe.
529 or a regular investment account?
The 529's tax-free growth for education is a real edge when the money is used for education; the taxable account wins on flexibility. Many families do both deliberately — certainty of purpose in the 529, freedom in the other.
Grandparents contributing — any catch?
Under current US federal aid rules, grandparent-owned 529 distributions no longer count against the student in the FAFSA the way they once did. Rules change; if aid eligibility is central to your plan, verify the current treatment before structuring gifts.
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