Education costs in India are inflating at 8-10% per year - much faster than headline CPI. A college degree that costs ₹15 lakh today will cost ₹40+ lakh in 15 years. This calculator projects the future cost and tells you exactly how much to start saving every month.
Total fees in today's rupees
Future cost
₹47,58,254
In 15 years
Monthly SIP needed
₹9,328
Existing savings will grow to
₹5,16,799
How the future cost will be funded
Education inflation in India runs 8-10%, well above CPI. For foreign education, also factor in 3-5% rupee depreciation. Use equity-heavy portfolios early in the journey, shift to debt as the start year approaches.
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Education inflation in India consistently outpaces general inflation. While CPI runs at 5-6%, premium-tier college fees have risen 8-12% annually for the last decade. A B.Tech at top private engineering colleges that cost ₹6 lakh in 2014 now costs ₹15-22 lakh. MBA programs at IIMs and top private B-schools have crossed ₹25 lakh for two-year programs. Medical education at private colleges has reached ₹80 lakh to ₹1.5 crore. Foreign education (US Master's, UK undergrad) routinely costs ₹50 lakh to ₹1 crore including living expenses, with both USD and rupee inflation working against you.
This calculator projects today's college cost forward at education inflation, accounts for any savings you've already accumulated, and tells you the exact monthly SIP required to hit the inflated future target. Use it to plan from your child's birth (18-year horizon, modest monthly SIP works), or when the child is in middle school (8-10 year horizon, more aggressive SIP needed), or for self-funded mid-career education like an MBA.
Enter the current cost of the college / programme you want to fund (today's rupees).
Set the education-inflation rate (8-10% is realistic for India).
Enter how many years until the course starts.
Set the expected return on your savings (debt 6-7%, balanced 9-10%, equity 11-13%).
Add anything you've already saved for this goal.
Read the future cost and the monthly SIP needed.
First, the calculator inflates today's cost forward by the education inflation rate to the year the course starts. Your existing savings grow at the expected return. The remaining gap is filled by a monthly SIP using the future-value-of-annuity formula.
FutureCost = Cost × (1 + i)^t ; Gap = FutureCost − CurrentSavings × (1+r)^n ; Monthly = Gap × r / [(1+r)^n − 1]
The calculator runs in three stages. Stage one: inflate today's cost by education inflation (8-10% for Indian premium programs, 12-15% effective for foreign education when rupee depreciation is factored in) to the year the course starts. Stage two: grow your existing savings forward at the expected investment return. Stage three: compute the SIP that fills the remaining gap using the future-value-of-annuity formula. Output is the monthly amount you need to save.
Allocation should shift over time. Far horizon (10+ years): 70-80% equity, 20-30% debt. This is when the high compounding from equity matters most and there's time to recover from market swings. Medium horizon (5-10 years): 50-60% equity, 40-50% debt. Near horizon (under 3 years): move 70-80% to safe assets (liquid funds, FDs, short debt) - protecting the corpus matters more than chasing the last 1-2% of return.
Education loan integration is often the smarter strategy. Sec 80E offers full deduction on education loan interest for 8 years (no upper limit). For a borrower in the 30% slab, this converts a 10% education loan into a 7% post-tax loan. If your investments are earning 11-12% pre-tax, the math favours keeping the corpus invested and using a loan for part of the cost - let the corpus continue compounding while the loan interest gets deducted from income tax.
Future cost in 12 years: 15 × 1.09^12 ≈ ₹42.16 lakh. Required monthly SIP at 11% over 144 months: approximately ₹13,800. Total SIP contributions over 12 years: ₹19.87 lakh. Investment gains: ₹22.29 lakh - over 50% of the goal comes from compounding alone.
Future cost in 8 years: 50 × 1.12^8 ≈ ₹1.24 crore. Existing ₹3 lakh grows to ₹6.43 lakh. Gap ₹1.18 crore. Required monthly SIP at 10% over 96 months: approximately ₹84,500. This is aggressive - most families either start earlier, lower the target school tier, or plan an education loan to bridge.
Premium colleges have raised fees 10-12% per year over the last decade - far above general CPI. Engineering, medicine and MBA programmes have especially aggressive fee hikes.
Yes. Foreign costs include tuition, living, currency depreciation. A US Master's costs ₹50-80 lakh today and inflates at 6-8% in USD plus rupee depreciation of 3-5%. Plan in INR at ~12% effective inflation.
10+ years gives time for equity. Start equity-heavy (70-80%), shift to debt as the course nears (3 years out, move 60-70% to debt to protect the corpus from market swings).
Often yes. Education loan interest is fully tax-deductible under Sec 80E for 8 years. If your investments are earning more than the loan rate, leave them invested and use loan + Sec 80E benefit.
SSY is excellent for girl-child education - currently 8.2% tax-free with EEE status. Use it as the base; add equity SIPs on top. The SSY corpus matures around college age perfectly.
Plan as if there are none, treat any scholarship as a bonus. Need-based aid is uncertain; merit-based requires academic performance you can't guarantee 10 years out.
Indian financial products - home loans, fixed deposits, mutual funds, NPS, insurance - each carry their own quirks: monthly reducing balance vs flat-rate interest, quarterly vs monthly compounding, indexation on capital gains, the choice between the old and new tax regime. We design every finance calculator to use the formula that an Indian bank, AMC, or insurer would actually use, and to surface the assumptions in plain English so you can audit the result against your own statement.
Use this calculator alongside the EMI, SIP and inflation calculators to plan your money holistically. A standalone EMI number means little until you compare it with your in-hand salary, your existing debt-to-income ratio, and the impact of inflation on the real cost of the loan. The related-tool grid below makes it one click to chain these analyses together.
The College Cost Calculator is part of the Finance suite on Online Calculator Tools, alongside 6 related calculators. All tools share the same UI patterns, the same privacy-first rendering (nothing is sent to a server), and the same commitment to showing the formula and assumptions behind every result.
