College budget planner

Plan how to pay for 4 years of college.

Compare the colleges on your shortlist with annual cost increases included. Add your savings and contributions to estimate how much you would need to borrow and your monthly loan payments.

Build my 4-year plan

Build the estimate

Enter your assumptions.

Every college uses the same start year, income range, savings, and contributions. Results update as you type; you do not have to fill every field.

Family and timing Starting college in Household income Home state Field of study

Savings and annual contribution Current college savings Monthly savings contribution Annual contribution from income

Advanced assumptions

Both have a usual setting. Change them only if you want to test a different one.

Assumed annual savings return Assumed annual cost increase

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The borrowing, in order

A shortfall is filled the way an aid office fills it. The student's own federal loan goes first — $5,500 in the first year, $6,500 in the second, $7,500 in each of the last two, at 6.52%. A parent loan covers what is left, at 9.07%, up to $20,000 a year and $65,000 across the degree. Anything past that is a private loan, a cheaper college, or a different plan.

Both loans take a fee off the top before the money reaches the college, so the amount borrowed is a little more than the amount that arrives. The parent loan charges interest from the day it is disbursed and it is shown here at what it will have grown to by graduation. Payments are the standard ten-year schedule.