How much should we save for college?
Quick answer
Roughly a third
From savings, with a third from income and a third from aid, work or loans. A rule of thumb. Decide your share first.
Decide what share you intend to cover before you pick a number, because "all of it" and "a third of it" are completely different savings plans. A widely used rule of thumb is to aim for roughly a third from savings, a third from current income while they study, and a third from aid, work, or loans. Starting early matters far more than starting big: money invested when your child is three has fifteen years to grow, and money saved at sixteen has almost none.
What to consider
- Published price is not what most families pay
- Sticker prices and net prices differ substantially once grants and scholarships are counted. Planning against the published figure overstates what you need.
- What share you intend to fund
- This single decision drives everything else. Say it out loud, and ideally say it to your child before they build expectations.
- Time, not amount, is the lever
- Regular small contributions started early beat large contributions started late, because of compounding.
- Your own retirement comes first
- There are loans for study and none for retirement. Underfunding your retirement to fund college often transfers a larger cost back to your child later.
- College may not be the path
- Apprenticeships, trades, and employer-funded routes exist. Money saved in a flexible way keeps those options open.
The numbers
Published tuition and fees
Varies enormously by sector: in-state public, out-of-state public, and private differ by multiples
Check the current edition rather than any figure quoted second-hand, including this page. The gap between sectors matters more than the national average.
Published source College Board
Published price versus net price
Net price is typically well below published price
Grant aid means many families pay substantially less than the advertised figure. Planning to the sticker price is a common and expensive mistake.
Published source College Board
A common planning split
About a third saved, a third from income, a third from aid or work
A rule of thumb rather than a researched standard, but it produces a target that is achievable instead of paralysing.
Convention, not research
Effect of starting early
Fifteen years of growth versus two
The same monthly amount started at age three rather than sixteen produces a dramatically different total, because most of the growth happens in the later years of a long run.
Arithmetic
Your options
Your action plan
Do firstThis week
- Decide the share you intend to cover and write it down as a percentage.
- Check you are contributing enough to any employer retirement match first.
- Look up the net price, not the published price, for one in-state public and one private option.
- Set up a small automatic monthly contribution, even if the amount feels trivial.
ThenNext month
- Increase the contribution by a small fixed amount and leave it alone.
- Compare a dedicated education account against a flexible one for your situation.
- If your child is over 13, tell them what you intend to fund. Expectations set late are much harder.
Keep an eye onWatch for
- Planning against published prices rather than net prices.
- Reducing retirement contributions to fund college.
- Waiting until you can afford a meaningful amount, which wastes the years that do the most work.
- Assuming college is the only path worth funding.
Dad did the math.papacalcs.com
You know what to do.
Now here’s the system to actually do it.
A year-by-year roadmap of the skills, money habits and decisions that need to be in place before your child turns eighteen. College is one part of it, not the whole of it.
The Road to 18
Prepare your child for adulthood before they need to be independent.
Recommended here because you are working on college.
- For
- Ages 10 to 18
- The problem
- Your child is growing up, and it is genuinely hard to tell whether you are preparing them for independence or just getting through each year.
- What changes
- See which independence gaps are real, while there is still time to close them
- Hand over one area at a time, permanently, instead of all at once at seventeen
- Compare post-school paths on cost as well as on hope
Common questions
When should we start?
As early as you can manage anything at all. The amount matters much less than the number of years it has to grow.
Should we cover the whole cost?
That is a values decision, not a financial one, but it should not come at the expense of your retirement. A stated partial contribution is more useful to your child than an unstated intention to cover everything.
What if my child does not go to college?
Then a flexible account is worth more than a dedicated one. If you are genuinely unsure, that uncertainty is itself an argument for flexibility.
Where these numbers come from
- Last reviewed
- October 1, 2026
- Geography
- United States
-
Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid
College Board · United States
Published tuition and fees, and the gap between published and net price after aid.
-
Digest of Education Statistics
National Center for Education Statistics · United States
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