How Much Should You Save for College?

The target

Start with the number you are actually saving toward. Four years at the public four-year sticker — $25,850 a year for tuition, fees, housing, and food in 2025–26 — is $103,400. That is the gross target before grants, and grants move it a lot: inflation-adjusted net tuition at public four-years fell 48% over the last decade. But saving toward the sticker is the conservative plan, and conservative is the right posture for an 18-year promise. If grants arrive, the surplus becomes graduate school, a smaller loan, or a head start on the next goal.

A useful frame from financial planners is the one-third rule: aim to save a third of the sticker in advance, cash-flow a third from income during the college years, and borrow the last third. On the $103,400 public sticker, the savings third is $34,467 — the number the rest of this article prices in monthly terms. It is not a law; it is a way to keep the borrowing third small enough that the loan years stay survivable.

The 529 math

The 529 college savings plan is the standard vehicle — contributions grow tax-deferred and withdrawals for qualified education expenses are federal-tax-free — but the vehicle matters less than the arithmetic. Put $300 a month into an account earning 6% a year, starting the month a child is born, and by freshman year the balance is $116,206. Of that, $64,800 is contributions and $51,406 is growth. Nearly half the freshman-year fund was never deposited by anyone; it is compounding doing the second half of the saving.

Scale it to the one-third target: $34,467 saved over 18 years at 6% requires about $89 a month from birth. That is the monthly price of the savings third of a public degree at sticker — less than many families spend on streaming subscriptions and food delivery combined. The number is small because the time horizon is long, which is the entire argument for starting early rather than saving heroically later.

The cost of waiting

Now the same $300 a month, but starting at age six instead of at birth — twelve years of compounding instead of eighteen. The balance at eighteen: $63,045. The six-year delay costs $53,161. Read that again, because it is the most important number in college savings: waiting six years to start costs more than twice what you would have contributed in those six years ($21,600). The contributions are the smaller part of the plan; the calendar is the larger part.

This is why every college-savings conversation that starts with “how much per month” is asking the second question first. The first question is when. A family that saves $150 a month from birth ends with more than a family that saves $300 a month starting at age nine — half the monthly effort, more money, because the early dollars compound the longest. Time is the asset. The deposit is just the funding mechanism.

What if you cannot save $300 a month

Then change the target before you change the effort. The 2+2 path — two years at a community college, then transfer to a public four-year — reprices the sticker: two years at the $15,000 community-college total plus two years at the $25,850 public total is $81,700, which is $21,700 less than four years at the public sticker. The diploma says the same thing; the ledger says $21,700 less. And remember the community-college footnote: full-time students’ grant aid has covered their tuition and fees entirely since 2009–10, so the real 2+2 savings are larger than the sticker math suggests.

Second, file the FAFSA even if you assume you earn too much. The 2024 simplification expanded Pell Grant eligibility — recipients rose 22% between 2022–23 and 2024–25, to 7.3 million students — and many schools use the FAFSA for their own institutional aid, the same aid behind the 57% private-college discount rate. The families who skip the form are declining to be considered for money that is, in a meaningful sense, already budgeted for them.

The honest monthly number

So how much should you save? If the goal is the savings third of a public degree at sticker, started at birth: $89 a month. If you can do $300, you cover the whole sticker with room to spare. If you start late, the monthly number rises steeply — that is the $53,161 talking — and the right response is to cut the target (2+2, grants, net-price calculators) rather than to chase the shortfall with heroic deposits. Save early, save steadily, and let the calendar do the heavy lifting it is so good at.

Sources: College Board, Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2025 (2025–26 published totals: $15,000 public two-year, $25,850 public four-year in-state; community-college grant coverage of tuition since 2009–10; real net tuition at public four-years down 48% over the decade); The EDU Ledger summary of the 2025 report (Pell recipients up 22% to 7.3 million, expenditures $38.6B); 529 growth figures computed at 6% annual compounding: $300/mo × 216 months = $116,206 ($64,800 contributions, $51,406 growth); $300/mo × 144 months = $63,045; $89/mo × 216 months ≈ $34,467; 2+2 sticker comparison $81,700 vs $103,400.