Helping college students spend smarter, stress less, and graduate stronger
Spending.College is a free financial planning tool built specifically for college students. We help you figure out exactly how much money you'll need for college — not some generic national average, but real numbers tailored to your state, your school type, and your lifestyle.
The average college student has no idea how much they actually spend each month. Our calculator changes that. Enter your state and a few details, and in 30 seconds you'll know your realistic monthly spending estimate broken down by housing, food, transportation, and more.
We built this because most financial advice for students is either too vague ("make a budget!") or too complicated. We wanted something simple enough to use in a minute, but detailed enough to actually be useful.
State-specific data. A student at UCLA and a student at Ohio State have completely different costs of living. We account for that. Our estimates use regional housing markets, local food prices, and state-level transportation costs.
No account required. You don't need to sign up, give us your email, or download anything. Just use the calculator and go.
Not a bank, not a lender. We have zero financial incentive to push you toward any particular product. Our job is just to give you accurate information so you can make better decisions.
Built for real students. We tested this with actual college students — not financial advisors sitting in offices. The categories, the language, and the design are all shaped by what students actually find useful.
Nearly 7 in 10 college students say financial stress is a major problem in their lives. A huge part of that stress comes from not knowing what to expect — students show up to college without any real sense of what things cost, how to structure a budget, or how to handle a money emergency.
Our mission is to close that knowledge gap. We want every college student in America to start the school year with a clear, realistic picture of their finances — and the tools to stay on track throughout.
When students manage their money well, they study better, stress less, and are more likely to graduate. That's worth building for.
I'm Andrew, the person who built and runs Spending.College. I'm 18 and grew up in Massachusetts, where I attended Boston College High School. I'm not a financial advisor, a startup CEO, or a team of engineers — just someone who ran into a real problem and decided to build a solution for it.
I built this site entirely myself, from the data research to the design to the code. It's a solo project, and I plan to keep it that way for as long as it stays useful and honest.
When I started thinking seriously about college, I kept running into the same wall: tuition calculators are everywhere, but nobody tells you how much cash you'll need day-to-day. How much do groceries cost in that city? What's a normal amount to spend on going out? How much should I set aside just to function?
I tried Googling it. I got Reddit threads from 2018 and generic "save money in college!" listicles. Nothing that actually answered my question in a useful, state-specific way. So I built the thing I was looking for.
My goal was simple: give students a real number, specific to where they're going to school, so they can show up prepared instead of blindsided. If this calculator saves even one student from running out of money mid-semester, it was worth building.
We're a small team and we read every message. If you found a mistake in our data, have a suggestion, or just want to say the calculator helped you — we'd love to hear from you.
Reach us at our contact page or check out the guides section for more in-depth budgeting advice.