How much will my 529 plan be worth?

It depends on how much you start with, what you add and the return. $10,000 plus $250 a month from age 5 grows to about $80,634 by 18 at a 6% average annual return. That's $49,000 of contributions plus $31,634 of tax-free growth.

How much should I save in a 529 each month?

Enough to cover your target by the time college starts. To pay the full average cost of four years at an in-state public university (tuition, fees, housing and food), starting from nothing, you'd need about $574 a month from birth, $776 from age 5, or $1,223 from age 10, assuming a 6% return and costs rising 4% a year.

What does college cost now?

The College Board puts average 2025-26 tuition, fees, housing and food at $25,850 a year at in-state public four-year colleges and $60,920 at private nonprofit four-year colleges. Books, transport and other expenses add roughly $5,000 more.

Is there a limit on 529 contributions?

There's no federal annual limit, but gifts above $19,000 per person in 2026 count against the lifetime gift tax exemption. A special rule lets you front-load five years at once: up to $95,000 per child, or $190,000 for a married couple, without using that exemption. Each state also caps the total balance a plan can hold.

What can 529 money be used for?

Tuition, fees, books, supplies, computers, and housing and food for students enrolled at least half-time. It can also pay up to $10,000 in lifetime student loan repayments, registered apprenticeships, and from 2026 up to $20,000 a year of K-12 tuition. Using it for anything else means paying income tax and a 10% penalty on the earnings.

What happens to unused 529 money?

You can change the beneficiary to another family member, keep it for graduate school, or withdraw it and pay tax plus a 10% penalty on the earnings (the penalty is waived up to the amount of a scholarship). Under SECURE 2.0, up to $35,000 over a lifetime can also be rolled into the beneficiary's Roth IRA if the account has been open for 15 years.

Does a 529 plan hurt financial aid?

Only a little. A parent-owned 529 counts as a parent asset on the FAFSA, which reduces aid eligibility by at most 5.64% of its value. 529 accounts owned by grandparents are no longer reported on the FAFSA at all.

529 Calculator: College Savings Growth and Goal

A 529 plan is a state-sponsored investment account for education. What you put in grows free of federal income tax, and withdrawals are tax-free too when they pay for college and other qualified education costs. This calculator projects what your account will be worth by the time your child starts college. It sets that against what college is likely to cost by then, and tells you the monthly amount that would cover the whole bill.

529 formulas: savings at college equal the current balance times one plus the monthly return to the n, plus the monthly contribution times the future value factor; the cost of college adds each year's cost grown by college inflation — What the account will be worth, and what college will cost by then

How the projection works

Two numbers matter: what you’ll have, and what you’ll need.

What you’ll have. With a current balance , a monthly contribution , a monthly return (the annual return divided by 12) and months until college:

What you’ll need. College prices rise every year. If a year costs today and prices grow at a rate , the first year of college, years from now, costs . Each year after that costs a bit more. Adding up four years gives:

The calculator compares the two and, if there’s a gap, works out the monthly contribution that would close it.

Worked example: a 5-year-old headed to a public university

Take a 5-year-old with $10,000 already saved and $250 added every month. The plan earns 6% a year, and today’s cost is $25,850 a year, the College Board’s average for in-state tuition, fees, housing and food at a public four-year college, rising 4% a year. These are the calculator’s default values.

Step 1 — savings at 18. That’s 13 years, or 156 months, at a monthly rate of 0.5%:

You’ll have put in $49,000; the other $31,634.20 is tax-free growth.

Step 2 — the cost of college by then. The first year, 13 years from now:

All four years together come to $182,776.94.

Step 3 — the gap. The plan covers 44.1% of that, leaving a shortfall of $102,142.74. To cover the full amount, the monthly contribution would need to rise from $250 to $683.82.

That doesn’t mean the plan is failing. Many families aim to cover part of the cost with savings and the rest from income during college, scholarships, grants or a modest loan. The point is to know the number, and to choose it rather than discover it.

Bar chart of the monthly saving needed to fully fund four years of college starting from zero: public in-state 574 dollars from birth, 776 from age 5, 1,223 from age 10 and 3,139 from age 15; private nonprofit 1,353, 1,829, 2,882 and 7,398 dollars — Starting at birth instead of age 10 roughly halves the monthly amount

529 Calculator worked example diagram — A visual read of the worked example above — the same numbers the calculator returns for its default inputs.

Why starting early matters so much

Time does two things for a 529. It spreads the cost over more months, and it gives the growth longer to compound. To fund four years at an average in-state public university from a zero balance, you’d need about $574 a month from birth, $776 from age 5, $1,223 from age 10 and $3,139 from age 15. For an average private college, multiply by roughly 2.4. The same age-5 start needs about $1,829 a month.

College costs to plan for

Type of college (2025-26 average)	Tuition and fees	Plus housing and food	Full budget with books, transport and other costs
Public two-year, in-district	$4,150	$15,000	$21,320
Public four-year, in-state	$11,950	$25,850	$30,990
Public four-year, out-of-state	$31,880	$45,780	$50,920
Private nonprofit four-year	$45,000	$60,920	$65,470

These are published prices before grants. Many students pay less: the College Board estimates that average grant aid covers much of the tuition at public four-year colleges. Use the price of the kind of school you have in mind, and remember that published prices have risen about 3% to 4% a year before inflation adjustment recently.

529 rules to know in 2026

Qualified expenses: college tuition, fees, books, supplies and computers, plus housing and food for students enrolled at least half-time. They also cover registered apprenticeship costs, up to $10,000 of lifetime student loan repayments and, from 2026, up to $20,000 a year of K-12 tuition (raised from $10,000 by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act).
Contributions: there’s no federal annual limit. Gifts up to $19,000 per person per beneficiary in 2026 need no gift tax paperwork, and five-year “superfunding” allows up to $95,000 at once ($190,000 for a married couple). Each state caps the total balance.
State tax breaks: more than 30 states give a deduction or credit for contributions, usually only to their own state’s plan.
Unused money: change the beneficiary to another family member, or roll up to $35,000 over a lifetime into the beneficiary’s Roth IRA once the account is 15 years old, within the yearly Roth limit.
Non-qualified withdrawals: the earnings are taxed and hit with a 10% penalty. The penalty is waived up to the amount of a tax-free scholarship.

Common mistakes

Planning with today’s prices. A $25,850 year today is about $43,000 a year when a 5-year-old reaches college, at 4% a year.
Leaving the plan too aggressive near college. Most age-based portfolios shift toward bonds and cash as college approaches, so a market drop just before tuition is due does less damage.
Forgetting housing and food. Tuition is less than half of the cost at a public university.
Waiting for a raise to start. Even small amounts early beat larger amounts later.

Projections only. Investment returns and college prices vary, and state plan fees and tax rules differ. Check your state’s plan for its own limits and benefits.

Sources and assumptions

This calculator assumes:

Contributions are made monthly and earn a constant return until college starts, then stop growing.
College costs rise at the constant rate you enter.
Plan fees, taxes on non-qualified withdrawals and financial aid are not modeled.

Sources:

Trends in College Pricing, College Board
529 plans: questions and answers, Internal Revenue Service
Tax inflation adjustments for tax year 2026, Internal Revenue Service

Figures last reviewed: 5 October 2026. Educational estimates, not professional advice.

About the formula: Savings grow monthly at the expected return divided by 12, with contributions added at the end of each month until college starts. The cost of each year of college is today's cost grown by the cost increase rate; the projected total adds up every year of college. The money is assumed to stop growing once college begins, which keeps the estimate conservative. Taxes and fees inside the plan are not modeled.

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