College Savings Planning: Future Cost, Monthly Savings & Tax-Advantaged Accounts

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Project what each of Zoe's four college years will cost when she gets there, add up the 4-year bill and see how much of it is inflation.
• Turn the projected college bill into a savings goal and work out the lump sum needed today, the monthly saving needed, the effect of money already saved and how far an affordable budget gets.
• Complete an age-based allocation table, calculate each band's expected return, look up the band for 11 years to go and chart the glide path as a 100% stacked column.
• Compare $300 a month in a tax-advantaged education account with the same saving in a taxable account, and see what a non-qualified withdrawal would cost.
• Plan for three children of different ages: years to college, each child's future cost, the monthly saving for each and the family total.
• Add a capped employer match and yearly grandparent gifts to Zoe's plan and measure how much of the goal the combined saving reaches.
• Run a simplified, illustrative need analysis: available income, contributions from income and assets, the estimated need, and why it can matter who owns the savings.
• Draw Zoe's account down over four college years: withdrawals capped by the balance, the shortfall to cover from elsewhere, what is left at the end, and a stacked chart of how each year is paid.