Plan a college fund: the fee today, the fee then, and the SIP in between
Estimates only, not financial advice. What you type stays on your device. Updated on 24 Oct 2026.Child education planning starts from one number, the monthly SIP. A course costing ₹20,00,000 today costs ₹58,74,387 when a child now 4 turns 18, if fees rise 8% a year; at an assumed 11% return, ₹14,692 a month gets there. Enter your own ages, fee and rates.
| Course cost today | Cost at 18 | SIP a month | Total invested |
|---|---|---|---|
| ₹5,00,000 | ₹14,68,597 | ₹3,673 | ₹6,17,064 |
| ₹10,00,000 | ₹29,37,194 | ₹7,346 | ₹12,34,128 |
| ₹20,00,000 | ₹58,74,387 | ₹14,692 | ₹24,68,256 |
| ₹35,00,000 | ₹1,02,80,178 | ₹25,711 | ₹43,19,448 |
| ₹50,00,000 | ₹1,46,85,968 | ₹36,729 | ₹61,70,472 |
| ₹1,00,00,000 | ₹2,93,71,936 | ₹73,458 | ₹1,23,40,944 |
Put today’s fee for the whole course in What the course costs today.
Set the Child’s age today and the Age the money is needed, for example 18 for a degree.
Move Fee inflation to the rate you expect fees to rise, trying 8% and then 10%.
Open Year by year to see the monthly amount, what you have put in so far and the value at each age.
The child education goal calculator works backwards. Instead of asking what a monthly investment grows into, it starts from the fee your child will actually be billed and tells you the monthly amount that gets you there. Enter the child's age today, the age the money is needed, what the course costs at current fees, the inflation you expect on those fees, the return you are prepared to assume, and anything already saved.
Two things make the answer different from a plain SIP sum. The first is inflation on fees, which has historically outrun general inflation in India, so the target is not today's price: a ₹20 lakh course at 8% fee inflation is billed at about ₹58.7 lakh fourteen years later. The second is that money already set aside keeps compounding too, and is subtracted from the target before the monthly figure is worked out.
The arithmetic, in plain text. Years N = goal age − age today. Future fee = cost today × (1 + inflation)^N. Existing savings at the goal = savings × (1 + return ÷ 12)^(12N). Gap = the first minus the second, never below zero. Monthly amount = gap ÷ F, where F is what a ₹1 monthly plan grows to, paid at the start of each month. The monthly figure is rounded up, never down, so the plan reaches the fee rather than landing a few rupees short.
The rest of the article, and all 7 questions about Child Education Goal Calculator, are on the Child Education Goal Calculator page.
Depends on four things, and guessing any of them is where most plans go wrong: the years you have, the fee at today's prices, how fast fees are rising, and the return you assume. For a 4-year-old, a ₹20 lakh course, 8% fee inflation and an assumed 11%, the answer is about ₹14,692 a month.
College and school fees in India have generally risen faster than the consumer price index, so a figure above headline inflation is the cautious choice. Many families plan on 8% to 10% for private courses. Run the calculator at both ends of that range and plan for the higher of the two monthly figures.
Compounding does that. A ₹20 lakh course at 8% a year is billed at about ₹58.7 lakh after fourteen years, because each year's increase applies to the increased amount, not the original. Shorten the horizon and the gap narrows; lengthen it and the gap widens far faster than people expect.
None at all, which is the point. The return is whatever you enter, so the same answer works for a mutual fund SIP, a recurring deposit, PPF, Sukanya Samriddhi or a mix. No government rate is used anywhere, so nothing on this page goes out of date when the quarterly small savings rates change.
Formula only: no rates or limits are read from an official source.
Still stuck? Ask about Child Education Goal Calculator and anybody who knows can answer. No account needed.
On the related tools: Step-up SIP Calculator – See how raising your SIP every year changes the final corpus · ROI Calculator – Return on investment as a total percentage and as a yearly (annualised) rate.
In the collections Investment Calculators · Student Calculators.