College Cost Forecast
Free College Cost Forecast calculator with clear step-by-step results.
About College Cost Forecast
Forecasts the sticker price of a degree by inflating tuition and living costs at separate rates - tuition has historically risen faster than general prices - and compounding each academic year to its own start date rather than to enrolment.
Formulas
Year k tuition
Tuition = today's tuition x (1 + tuition inflation)^(years until enrolment + k)
Programme total
Total = sum over all programme years of inflated tuition plus inflated living costs
Worked example
With the default values below, College Cost Forecast returns Total cost of the whole programme of $203,692.71. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Annual tuition and fees todayminimum 0 $
- 22,000 $
- Annual living costs todayminimum 0 $
- 12,000 $
- Years until enrolmentaccepts 0–25
- 8
- Programme lengthaccepts 1–10
- 4
- Tuition inflationaccepts 0–20 %
- 5 %
- Living cost inflationaccepts 0–20 %
- 3 %
Results
- Total cost of the whole programme
- $203,692.71
- Cost of the first year
- $47,705.26
- Tuition and fees across the programme
- $140,096.39
- Living costs across the programme
- $63,596.32
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Year k tuition
- 3Programme total
- 4Total cost of the whole programme= $203,692.71
- 5Cost of the first year= $47,705.26
- 6Tuition and fees across the programme= $140,096.39
- 7Living costs across the programme= $63,596.32
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 6 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take tax into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this what families actually pay?
No - it is the published cost. Grants, scholarships and institutional aid frequently cut the net price by a third or more at private institutions.
Why separate tuition and living inflation?
They behave differently. Tuition is set institutionally and has outpaced CPI for decades, while rent and food track general inflation more closely.