How much should you save for your child’s college? It’s one of the biggest questions we get asked almost every day. How much should we have in a 529 plan? How much should we save for college? How much do we need to worry about this? The answer is difficult – it depends.
The idea of a 529 college savings plan is a great one: You can contribute money to an account and it will grow tax-free to pay for your child’s education one day. And you can contribute a lot of money, too (up to $300,000 in most states). This is not where the problem arises.
The real problem comes from the rising costs of education and the amount every “college savings calculator” says you need to save for your child’s education. according to College Boardthe average cost of a 4-year public college in 2025-2026 was $11,950 for in-state tuition. The average cost of private college was $45,000.
When you start plugging these numbers into a college savings calculator, suddenly you should start saving more than $500 a month for your child. Then add that to your own retirement savings, and you won’t have anything left for yourself each month!
So let’s dive in and see how much you should have in a 529 plan.
Follow the order of saving for college
This one amount shocks me every month when I think about saving for my child’s college education. But it’s also an important reminder of why everyone should follow the order of savings for your child’s college.
The key phrase is Yes:
(R)You: You need to make sure your financial situation is sound before you try to save for your child’s college. If you can’t pay rent or buy groceries, there are bigger problems to fix first. However, the YOU kit also includes saving for your retirement and making sure you have an emergency fund. I’ve said this hundreds of times – you can’t get a loan for retirement. Make sure you save for yourself first.
(e) Educational Savings Accounts: If you save for yourself, you can then save for your child in education savings accounts, such as a 529 plan.
(s) Saving: After contributing something to a 529 plan or other educational savings account, it’s a good idea to save in a traditional savings account as well, in case there are other expenses you want to help your child with that don’t qualify as educational expenses.
How much do you really need to save in a 529 plan?
The second part of this “scary” number that you need to save each month for your child’s college is This number is based on saving 100% of their college costs. As a parent, you do not need to pay 100% of their school costs. Or maybe you’ll pay 100% of the in-state public tuition, and the rest is up to them. Or maybe you’ll just have a target savings number, and the rest is up to them.
It is simply important to remember that you do not have to save up and pay for their college in full. It’s their college – not yours. Additionally, there are many ways they can find help paying for school, from finding scholarships to taking out student loans.
Here’s The College Investor’s guide to how to pay for college.
So, instead of focusing on saving $500 a month, I’ll make the following assumptions and save accordingly:
- I will be saving for an in-state college that currently costs $10,200 a year
- I will contribute all four years of college
- I will pay 50% of the expected college costs
- I’m done contributing to a 529 plan when my child turns 18 (sorry, but you’re out now!)
- I expect college costs to continue to increase at 4% per year
- I expect to receive an annual return of 6% on my investments in my 529 plan
With these assumptions, you should save about $96 a month for your child’s college, or $1,151 a year. Let’s see how that breaks down.
However, if you are a high-income earner and want to contribute to paying for 100% of your child’s education at a private 4-year college, I’ve included that in the chart below as well (for reference that means contributing $630 per month).
If you want better estimates, check out our guide to 529 plans by state, search for your state, and see the costs of attending college in your specific state.
How much should you have in your 529 at different ages
Fidelity also has a great free calculator that lets you determine how much you need specifically for your situation. They make use of many of the same assumptions we made above, and agree that you don’t need to save 100% of your child’s college education expenses. Payment Their college savings calculator is here.
You may also find our guide to 529 plan contribution limits helpful.
529 College Savings Plan Guidelines
From the results we conclude that the goal Most people saving for college should have between $37,328 and $245,427 saved in an account. This is undoubtedly a huge scope. But remember what “low end” and “high end” mean.
The low amount is for someone who wants to help their child pay for a 4-year public college. The higher amount is for someone who wants to pay in full for their child’s 4-year private education.
Parents should also remember that even when saving for private universities, many students who attend private schools receive reduced tuition fees, or receive scholarships to offset the “real” tuition price. So, even this high number may not make sense when saving for college.
In this scenario, a low-cost 529 plan would be able to pay between $9,600 and $10,000 per year, for each of the four years of school. Since college costs will rise, this should account for about 50% of four-year public school tuition in 18 years.
Where to open a 529 plan
What many people don’t realize is that you can invest in almost any state’s 529 plan. For some people, it may make sense to use your state plan to take advantage of the tax deduction — but not all states offer tax deductions for contributions (particularly California).
If condition is not important, the next things to look at are performance and ease of saving. As for performance, you want good performance for a low fee. To make saving easier, we’re looking at linking the plan to savings programs like Backer.
Check out this guide here, search for your state, and see what plan we recommend: 529 Plan Guide.
SavingForCollege.com ranks the best plans every year. The plan you choose depends on the state you are in. See the map below and search for your state:
Recommendations to help save for college
Even saving just $100 a month may seem like a daunting task. I know it is for me. However, when it comes to saving for college, here are some simple tricks that can help you:
1. Save all of your child’s birthday and holiday money. In many families, children receive money from their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others. I estimate that the average child receives at least $200 a year in gift money. If you save that, you’re 20% of the way to achieving their annual contribution of 529.
A great way to do this is to use a service like Backer. Backer makes 529 plan gifting super easy — so you can save for your kids or help a friend or family member save, too.
2. Look at the waiver. This is a free service designed to help families pay for college by simply doing their regular shopping. Upromise offers cash back rewards for linking a credit or debit card and using that card at participating retailers. You can earn anywhere from 1% to 25% from different retailers. Upromise says some members earn as little as $1,000 a year — that’s almost all you need to fully fund a 529 plan. Plus, you can now get a $25 bonus if you link your 529 plan within 30 days of signing up! It’s easy to enroll in UPromise and save for college — check it out here.
3. Focus on making more money. Instead of looking at where you can cut your budget, ask yourself, how can you add $100 of income to your budget? I’m a firm believer that anyone can make an extra $100 a month, and what better way to use that extra $100 than by funding a 529 plan for your child? If you don’t know where to start, check out our list of 50+ ways to make extra money.
