College Cost Calculator

Calculate the total cost of college including tuition, room and board, books, and personal expenses with inflation adjustment.

This calculator builds a multi-year cost-of-attendance projection instead of just a single-year snapshot. Year 1 Cost adds together Annual Tuition, Room & Board, Books & Supplies, and Personal Expenses exactly as entered, with no inflation applied -- Annual Inflation has no bearing on Year 1 Cost at all, since inflation only compounds forward from the first year onward. Total Cost then projects that same combined figure forward across Years, compounding each subsequent year's cost by Annual Inflation, so raising either Years or Annual Inflation always raises Total Cost: more years means more years of cost to add up, and a higher inflation rate means each later year costs more than the last. Year 1 Cost is an unweighted sum of the four expense categories -- Annual Tuition is the largest single line item at this calculator's default values, but none of the four inputs structurally dominates the others, and the real-world ranking varies by school type: at many in-state public four-year schools, published room-and-board charges actually exceed published tuition and fees, so which category is "biggest" depends on the numbers you enter, not a fixed rule. Average Per Year simply divides Total Cost by Years, giving a single blended figure that's useful for comparing the true multi-year cost of one school against another, since a school with a lower sticker price but higher annual cost growth can end up costing more over four years than a pricier school with slower cost inflation.