The Education Goal calculator helps you figure out how much a client needs to save to fund a child's education. You'll find it under Planning → Goals inside any client. It walks you through the key assumptions step by step and tells you exactly how much the client should have set aside today — or how much they need to save each month — to stay on track.

Each Education goal is tied to a specific child (or adult) in the client's household. If a client has multiple children, you'll create a separate Education goal for each one.

The Education goal needs two things in place before the calculator can run:

When you add a child during client setup, you'll see a Create Education Goal? toggle. Turning this on automatically creates an Education goal linked to that child — saving you a step.

When you click into an Education goal, the calculator appears on the left side of the page. Here's what each step does.

Select the child (or adult) this goal is for. The dropdown shows everyone in the client's household along with their current age. The calculator uses this age to figure out how many years until education begins.

The age when the student will start their education program. Default is 18 (for a traditional four-year college). Change this if the client is planning for graduate school, a gap year, or a program that starts earlier or later.

The age when the student will finish. Default is 22 (four years of college). The difference between start and end age determines how many years of education costs to fund.

The total annual cost of the education program in today's dollars — including tuition, room and board, and fees. The default is $40,000. You'll want to adjust this based on what kind of school the client is targeting:

Don't stress about getting this exact — it's a planning estimate. You can always refine it later.

What percentage of the total education cost the client plans to cover. Default is 100%. Lower this if the client expects the student to contribute through scholarships, loans, work-study, or personal savings. For example, if the plan is to cover 75% and let the student handle the rest, enter 75.

How fast education costs are expected to rise each year. Default is 4%, which aligns with historical college tuition inflation (typically 4–5% per year). This is separate from general inflation — education costs have historically grown faster than the overall cost of living.

This is the first result — the total cost of education based on everything you entered above. You'll see the student's name and the total amount they'll need.

Use the Today's $ / Future $ toggle to switch between:

This is a reference number — the calculator keeps going below to figure out what to do about it.

This shows how much the client has saved so far toward this goal. It's pulled automatically from the accounts you've assigned to the goal (like 529 plans, UTMA/UGMA accounts, or any other savings earmarked for education).

This field is read-only — to change it, assign or remove accounts using the Assign Accounts dropdown on the right side of the page.

If the client expects to make one-time contributions toward education at specific points in the future — like a grandparent gift, a bonus, or a planned liquidation — add them here. Each lump sum has:

Use the Today's $ / Future $ toggle to specify whether the amounts you're entering are in today's dollars or future dollars.

Lump sums are optional. Skip this step if the client will just be saving monthly.

The annual return you expect on the client's education savings between now and when school starts. Default is 7%.

For a more nuanced approach, click Use staged returns to define different return rates for different time periods. For example, you might assume 8% for the next 10 years while the child is young, then shift to 4% in the final 5 years as you'd move to more conservative investments.

This is the key output — the amount the client needs to save every month starting now to fully fund the education goal by the time the student starts school. It accounts for:

If this number shows $0, it means the client's current savings plus expected growth and lump sums already cover the goal.

This is the lump sum the client would need to invest right now — as a single deposit — to fully cover the education goal without any further monthly contributions. Think of it as the "what if we just wrote one check today?" number.

To the right of the calculator, you'll see:

Compares the client's current education savings (from assigned accounts) to the target amount. The target defaults to the calculator's "Fully Funded Today" number, but you can override it manually using the toggle icon next to the target field.

Compares the client's current monthly savings (from assigned accounts) to the monthly savings target from the calculator. If there's a gap, it shows the shortfall in red (e.g., "$300 under"). The target also defaults to the calculator output but can be overridden.

The list of accounts counting toward this goal. Click Assign Accounts to add or remove accounts. You can also control how much of each account's balance and savings apply to this specific goal — useful if an account is split across multiple goals.

A visual breakdown of how the assigned accounts are allocated, showing you the investment mix funding this goal.

Create a separate Education goal for each child. Each goal links to one student, so you can customize the assumptions per child — different schools, different timelines, different funding strategies.

Lower the Funding Percentage in Step 5. If the client plans to cover 50% and expects scholarships or student loans to handle the rest, enter 50. The calculator will adjust all outputs accordingly.

Set the Education Start Age to the child's current age (or close to it). The calculator will show a short time horizon with minimal compounding, which is accurate — at that point it's mostly about having the cash available.

Adjust the Start Age and End Age to match the graduate program timeline (e.g., start at 22, end at 24 for a two-year MBA). You may also want to update the annual cost to reflect graduate-level tuition.

Assign the 529 to the Education goal. Its balance will show as the current savings, and its monthly contributions will count toward cash flow progress. The calculator will factor in the current balance when computing how much more is needed.