THE WHOLE BILL.
NOT JUST TUITION.
How much college can you actually afford? Count the dorm room, meal plan, fees, transportation, books, and the years still ahead.
Is education getting more affordable?
A wage-adjusted price indicator, recalculated from official monthly observations. 100 marks March 2006. Above 100 means average hourly wages have gained ground against this education-cost proxy; below 100 means they have lost ground. It is not the actual cost of a degree or dorm room.
Index definition: average private-sector hourly earnings ÷ CPI for tuition, other school fees and childcare, divided by the same ratio in March 2006, × 100. The CPI category includes childcare and other school fees; it is not college tuition alone, a published college budget, a dorm price or individual household purchasing power. Source: BLS wages via FRED and BLS tuition/school-fees/childcare CPI via FRED. Historical readings change only when verified data change.
What can you afford?
Set a monthly family budget. Change the college type. Replace national assumptions with your own housing and food estimates. Calculations update immediately; estimates are not financial-aid offers.
01 / Your resources
Savings are spread across the chosen years; monthly contributions are multiplied by 12. No taxes or investment returns are assumed.
02 / The full annual bill
One country. Four very different bills.
Published 2025–26 national average annual budgets. These are sector averages, not prices at any specific college. Tap a row to use that sector in the calculator.
| Institution type | Tuition + fees | Housing + food | Other costs | Total |
|---|
SOURCE: College Board · Trends in College Pricing 2025 · Prices before individual student grants. Public two-year living allowance depends on residency arrangement.
What makes up the bill?
Bar lengths show annual published budget estimates, split into tuition, housing/food and other student costs.
The dorm is not free.
A tuition-only comparison can hide half the bill. National averages combine housing and food; a real college may split residence-hall price, required dining plan, deposits, break housing, and summer arrangements.
On-campus vs alternatives
Editable scenario only. Initial dorm/meal split is illustrative, not a published national decomposition.
Housing cost comparison
Not included: utilities, internet, deposits, parking, furniture, transit, household supplies, renter's insurance, summer dorm closure, or travel home. Add these when comparing actual housing contracts.
What changed over time?
Historical monthly series come from federal statistics. We keep actual observations and their dates; a tuition-and-childcare inflation series is labeled honestly as a broad proxy—not as a dorm-price chart.
When published to GitHub, the scheduled updater attempts an official refresh daily. New readings arrive according to the agencies' own release calendars; a successful check does not imply a new data point.
Never stop at a national average.
Before committing to a college, check its actual cost of attendance, published dorm and dining rates, net price after grants, completion rates, and program outcomes. These official resources are the next layer.
The numbers, over time.
College Board
National 2025–26 student budgets by institution sector. Housing and food together, with separate other-cost allowances.
Read original source ↗BLS via FRED
Official price and wage series downloaded daily when automation is deployed. Each observation retains its month and original series identifier.
Read original series ↗Federal College Scorecard
School-specific costs and outcomes from the U.S. Department of Education. Linked for deeper comparisons; not yet automatically integrated into this page.
Explore downloadable data ↗Methodological boundaries: national average costs are not quotes; grants entered are hypothetical; 3% default growth is a user-adjustable scenario, not a forecast; the CPI category includes childcare and school fees; working hours use gross pay; off-campus examples are editable assumptions. This is educational information, not individualized financial advice.