Planning for Your Child's Education: The Maths Most Parents Get Wrong

Of all the goals families plan for, a child's education is usually the most emotionally weighted — and, in my experience, the most consistently underestimated on paper. Not because parents don't care enough to plan, but because the maths involved is genuinely counter-intuitive.

The number itself is usually bigger than it looks today

Education costs — school fees, and especially higher education, including abroad — have historically risen faster than general inflation in India. Parents often anchor their planning to what a similar course costs today, without accounting for how much that number is likely to grow by the time their child actually gets there, particularly if that's ten or fifteen years away.

The timeline mistake

The most common error isn't underestimating the eventual cost — it's starting the planning conversation too close to when the money is actually needed. A goal fifteen years away gives you room to invest steadily and ride out market ups and downs along the way. The same goal, if planning only starts five years out, leaves far less room to work with and far less flexibility if markets are unfavourable right when the money is needed.

The goal most people don't want to hear about

Here's the uncomfortable one: many financial planners, myself included, would caution against fully sacrificing retirement planning to maximise a child's education fund. There are loans and scholarships available for education; there is no loan available for retirement. It's not about choosing one over the other — it's about not letting one goal completely crowd out the other in the name of parental guilt.

What actually helps

Treating a child's education as its own clearly defined goal — with its own timeline and its own dedicated investment plan, separate from general savings — makes it far easier to track progress and adjust early, rather than discovering a shortfall only when the fees are actually due.