Ask how much to set aside for a child's education and you will be given a number within seconds. Treat that number with suspicion. It comes from an average of institutions your child may never attend, inflated by an assumption nobody shows you, and it is designed to produce a reaction rather than a plan. The useful figure is not an average. It is a monthly amount that follows from four things only you know and one thing the school itself publishes.
So this is a simulator rather than a benchmark. You supply the inputs, the arithmetic is deliberately simple enough to do on paper, and every rate used as a reference below is published by a US federal agency with the date attached. What you will end up with is a monthly figure and, more usefully, a clear view of which input actually moves it.
If that monthly figure lands above what your budget currently allows, the gap is the real subject and the second half of this article is about it. One of the levers is an independent daily income such as I am Beezy, where you view content and each view generates earnings paid to your local payment method — small, but pointed directly at a monthly shortfall.
Why can no one tell you the number?
Because the two largest terms in the calculation do not exist yet, and any figure that pretends otherwise is filling them in for you without saying so.
The cost belongs to an institution you have not chosen
Published cost of attendance varies enormously between a public institution in your own state, a public institution out of state, a private college and a community college route followed by a transfer. Those are not variants of one number, they are different orders of magnitude. Until a shortlist exists, the honest input is a range taken from the published cost of attendance of two or three institutions your family might realistically consider — the figure each school publishes itself, not a national average someone has computed for you.
Aid is not a rounding error
The second missing term is what the family will actually be asked to pay after aid, which depends on income, household size and the institution's own policy. The federal entry point is Federal Student Aid and the FAFSA, administered by the Department of Education, and the mechanics change often enough that the only reliable source is studentaid.gov itself. What you can do today is stop treating sticker price as the target. Saving toward the full published cost of an expensive institution, when the family may qualify for substantial aid, converts a manageable plan into an impossible one and makes people give up entirely.
Build the simulator: five inputs, one monthly figure
Five values, one multiplication and one division. Write them in a column and keep the sheet, because you will revise it every year and the revisions are the point.
The five inputs and where each one comes from
Input one is the target: the published cost of attendance for the institutions on your shortlist, multiplied by the number of years, minus a realistic estimate of aid. Input two is the number of years until the first term, which you know exactly. Input three is what you can actually set aside every month today, taken from your bank statement rather than your intentions. Input four is the return you assume on the money while it waits. Input five is the inflation adjustment, because the target is in today's dollars and the bill will not be.
Running it, and the number that surprises people
Divide the target by the number of months remaining and you have the no-growth monthly figure — the honest floor, the amount required if the money simply sits there. Then apply your assumed return to see how much of the work the market does for you. Most families discover that the years input matters more than the return input: starting five years earlier moves the monthly figure more than any plausible difference in performance. That is the single most actionable finding in the whole exercise, and it costs nothing to act on.
| Input | Where you get it | What it does to the result |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Target amount | Cost of attendance published by shortlisted schools, minus estimated aid | Sets the whole scale — never use a national average |
| 2. Years remaining | Your child's age | The most powerful input by a distance |
| 3. Monthly capacity | Your bank statement, not your budget plan | Determines whether the plan survives month three |
| 4. Assumed return | Anchored on Treasury yields, 31 July 2026 | Moves the result far less than input 2 |
| 5. Inflation adjustment | PCE index, 3.7 % over twelve months to June 2026 | Converts today's target into tomorrow's bill |
| Result | Target divided by months, then adjusted | Your monthly figure, and the size of any gap |
What return should you assume, and where does it come from?
This is where most plans quietly become fiction. An assumed return is not a wish; it should be anchored to something published, and then reduced for the risk you are not taking.
The risk-free anchor
The Treasury yield curve on 31 July 2026 stood at 3.83 % for three months, 4.28 % for two years, 4.75 % for ten years and 5.27 % for thirty. Those are the rates the federal government pays to borrow, and they are the reference point for what money can earn without market risk over a matched horizon. The FOMC set the federal funds target range at 3.50 % to 3.75 % on 29 July 2026, which is what shapes the rate a savings account or a certificate of deposit will offer you. If a product promises far more than these, the difference is risk, and risk is exactly what a fixed-date goal tolerates least in its final years.
Do not forget to subtract inflation
A nominal return is not what your target needs; purchasing power is. The PCE price index rose 3.7 % over the twelve months to June 2026, and 3.3 % excluding food and energy. Subtract an inflation assumption from your assumed return and use the result in the simulator. This single adjustment is what separates a plan that lands from one that comes up short by a wide margin, and it is the step almost every online calculator skips. Note also that education costs have their own trajectory, which is not the same as the general price index — another reason to take the target from the schools themselves.
Closing the monthly gap with I am Beezy
Most families finish the simulator with a monthly figure larger than the amount currently available. That gap is not a failure of the plan, it is the plan's actual output, and it responds to two things: more months, or more income. I am Beezy addresses the second, on a scale that is honest about what it can do.
What it contributes, in plain terms
You view content — videos, articles, advertising — and each view generates earnings paid to your local payment method. The reference range is 5 to 15 euros a day; at the Federal Reserve H.10 rate of 1 EUR to 1.1519 USD on 31 July 2026, that is roughly $5.75 to $17.30 a day. Directed entirely at the education account rather than into general spending, that is a monthly contribution you can name in advance and automate on a fixed date, which is what makes it stick.
Automate it the day it arrives
The mechanism matters more than the amount. Set a standing transfer into the education account for the day after the money lands, so the decision is made once instead of thirty times a year. The personal saving rate was 2.7 % of disposable income in June 2026, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which tells you how rarely saving survives contact with a discretionary decision. Removing the decision is the whole trick.
Where the money sits changes what it is worth
Same monthly figure, three different containers, three different outcomes. The differences are about tax treatment, control, and how a financial aid formula counts the balance.
Three containers and what separates them
A 529 plan is sponsored by a state, and the state tax treatment of contributions differs from one plan to the next — so the first thing to check is your own state's plan and whether it gives residents an advantage. A custodial account under UGMA or UTMA is legally the child's property and transfers to their control at the age of majority set by your state, which is a feature or a serious problem depending on your view. A plain savings account at a bank or credit union offers no tax advantage and total flexibility. Ownership is the other axis: who owns the account changes how heavily an aid formula counts the balance, so confirm the current treatment at studentaid.gov before choosing a container rather than after.
The credits that free up cash along the way
Saving is easier when the tax year is working with you. The Child Tax Credit is worth up to $2,200 per child for tax year 2026, of which $1,700 is refundable. The Earned Income Tax Credit reaches a maximum of $4,427 with one child, $7,316 with two and $8,231 with three or more for tax year 2026. Neither is education-specific, and that is exactly why they get spent without being noticed. A family that routes a defined share of a refund straight into the education account converts an annual windfall into progress against the target. And keep the retirement plan in view: the 2026 limits are $24,500 for a 401(k) and $7,500 for an IRA, and borrowing against your own retirement to fund education is a trade you should make deliberately, not by default.
| Item | 2026 figure or reference | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Child Tax Credit | Up to $2,200 per child, $1,700 refundable | IRS, Rev. Proc. 2025-32 |
| EITC maximum, one to three children | $4,427 · $7,316 · $8,231 | IRS, Rev. Proc. 2025-32 |
| Standard deduction, married filing jointly | $32,200 | IRS, Rev. Proc. 2025-32 |
| 401(k) and IRA contribution limits | $24,500 and $7,500 | IRS, IR-2025-111 |
| Ten-year Treasury yield | 4.75 % on 31 July 2026 | Federal Reserve, H.15 |
| PCE inflation, twelve months | 3.7 %, June 2026 | Bureau of Economic Analysis |
What if you cannot reach the number?
Most families cannot, and treating that as a verdict is how plans get abandoned in year two. The simulator has more levers than the monthly amount.
Four levers, in order of effect
Start earlier, which you can only do once and only today. Lower the target by changing the shortlist — two years at a community college before transferring changes input one more than any amount of saving discipline. Add to input three from a source that is not your salary, which is where a small independent income belongs. And plan for the aid and work component explicitly rather than hoping: a part-time job during term and federal aid are part of nearly every real funding plan, not an admission of failure. Median household income in the United States was $83,730 in 2024, with no statistically significant change from 2023 — most families are funding this from a combination of sources, not from savings alone.
Revise it every January
Put a recurring note in the calendar for January, when the year's tax figures take effect and the account balances are easy to read. Update the five inputs, recompute the monthly figure, and adjust the standing transfer. Fifteen minutes a year keeps the plan honest, and an honest plan that lands eighty per cent of the target beats an ambitious one abandoned in March. If the gap is what is blocking you, attack it directly and automatically — I am Beezy pays daily for content you view, and a standing transfer sends it to the education account before it can become anything else.
