529 College Savings Calculator

A 529 plan is a state-sponsored, federally tax-advantaged account for education savings: money contributed grows tax-deferred, and withdrawals are federally tax-free as long as they're used for qualified education expenses. That category is broader than just college tuition, fees, room and board, and required books or equipment. It also covers K-12 tuition — with the annual amount you can withdraw for K-12 tuition per student doubling to $20,000 starting in tax year 2026 (up from $10,000), and now also covering K-12 tutoring, standardized test and AP exam fees, and certain educational therapies, though states set their own rules and not all of them conform to the expanded federal list. It covers registered apprenticeship program costs. And under SECURE 2.0, an account beneficiary can roll over up to $35,000 over their lifetime from a 529 into their own Roth IRA (subject to conditions, including that the 529 account must have been open at least 15 years and the rollover counts against the beneficiary's normal annual Roth contribution limit each year), plus a separate $10,000 lifetime allowance toward the beneficiary's own qualified student loans.

Many states also offer a state income tax deduction or credit for contributions to that state's own plan, though the specifics — whether a deduction exists at all, how large it is, and whether it applies to any state's 529 plan or only the account holder's home-state plan — vary considerably and change from year to year, so this calculator doesn't attempt to model a specific state's tax benefit. This calculator projects account growth using standard monthly compounding: your Current 529 Balance grows every month at your Expected Annual Return (converted to a monthly rate), and your Monthly Contribution is added each month on top of that growth, compounding until College Start Age. The projected balance is then compared against your Projected College Cost to show a percent-of-goal figure and a dollar shortfall or surplus. What this calculator does not model: federal gift-tax rules around large 529 contributions (including the special election allowing several years of annual gift-tax exclusions to be front-loaded into a single contribution), state-specific tax benefits, financial-aid impact of 529 assets, or the possibility that college costs or investment returns diverge from the flat assumptions you enter — real markets don't return the same percentage every year, and real tuition inflation varies by institution and over time.