Child Education Calculator
Price a child's education at education inflation and find the SIP to fund it by the age it's needed.
Milestones at the same inflation3 yrs
| Stage | When | Cost then | SIP from today |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior secondary | Age 16 | ₹71.33L | ₹25.97K |
| Undergraduate | Age 18 | ₹86.31L | ₹22.96K |
| Postgraduate | Age 22 | ₹1.26Cr | ₹18.92K |
Each row prices today's goal amount at that stage, as if it were the only goal.
Assumes a constant 12% annual return compounded monthly and 10% inflation compounded yearly. The SIP is invested at the start of each month. Actual returns vary.
Independent · No commissions · No fund-house data — how the numbers are computed
How it works
Education is the goal whose date is fixed by a birthday: a child who is 5 today starts an undergraduate degree in roughly 13 years, whether or not the money is ready. This calculator takes the cost of that education today, the child's age and the age at which the money is needed, and prices the goal at education inflation — the rate at which fees have actually risen, which has historically run well above headline CPI. The default is 10%; it then works out the monthly SIP from today, or the lumpsum now, that funds it.
At 10% inflation a course costing ₹25 lakh today costs about ₹86 lakh in 13 years. That multiple, not the inflation rate itself, is the number parents find hard to believe — and it is why the milestone table prices the same amount at each stage of schooling, so the gap between "school admission" and "postgraduate" is visible on one screen rather than discovered one fee at a time.
The arithmetic is the Goal Planning Calculator's with the horizon derived from ages, so both pages give the same SIP for the same inputs. Money already earmarked — a Sukanya Samriddhi balance, grandparents' gifts — goes under "already saved" and reduces the SIP. Anything still more than a decade away can reasonably be funded through equity funds; as the date approaches, the corpus is usually moved into debt so a late market fall cannot hit the admission year.
Cost_then = Cost_today × (1 + e)^(target age − current age); SIP = Cost_then ÷ FV(₹1/month, r, years)e is education inflation, r the expected annual return. The milestone table applies the same formula at each stage's age.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the calculator default to 10% inflation instead of 6%?
Because the relevant rate is what education costs have done, not the consumer price index. Fees for professional and private higher education in India have risen at roughly 8–12% a year over the past two decades, well ahead of general inflation. The slider runs 0–15% so a parent who expects public-university fees can set a lower rate.
At what age should the money be ready?
The default is 18, the usual age for undergraduate admission, but the target age is a slider: a parent planning for a postgraduate degree would set 22–23, and one worried about senior-secondary school fees would set 16. The milestone table shows several stages at once so the choice can be made with the numbers in view.
Is a SIP the right way to save for a child's education?
A SIP is a mechanism, not a product — it works with any fund. For a goal ten or more years away, equity funds are the usual vehicle and a monthly SIP matches how most households receive income. What matters as much is the de-risking step later: shifting the corpus into debt or liquid funds two to three years before it is needed, so the fee-payment year is not exposed to a market fall.
How does Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana fit into this?
SSY is a government scheme for a girl child with a fixed, tax-free rate and a 21-year term from account opening, with partial withdrawal permitted for higher education after she turns 18. Its projected balance can be entered under "already saved" here; the SIP shown is then the additional amount needed on top of it. The SSY calculator on this site projects that balance.
Go further
A fuller walk-through of horizon, fund choice and the de-risking step.
Project a Sukanya Samriddhi balance to enter as money already saved.
The same planner for any goal with a date.
The other half of the plan.