PPF or Sukanya Samriddhi for a Daughter’s Education
- Start from the goal, not the scheme
- How the two behave
- The structural difference that decides it
- Worked, on the timing question
- The answer most families arrive at
- Three practical points
- Where this fits
Both are government-backed, both are long, both are tax-efficient. The question that separates them is not which pays more. It is whether the money is available in the year you need it.
For a school or college fee, timing beats yield. A scheme paying slightly more that matures three years after the admission deadline has solved nothing.
Start from the goal, not the scheme
Write down the two dates before you compare anything.
A daughter born in 2026 will typically face a significant fee event at 17 or 18, when undergraduate admission happens, and often a second at 21 or 22 for postgraduate study. Those are the years money has to exist. Everything else is secondary.
Now check each scheme against them.
How the two behave
| Sukanya Samriddhi | PPF | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | A girl child, opened before she turns 10 | Anyone, including in the child’s name |
| Deposit period | A defined number of years from opening, shorter than the account’s life | The full term, extendable |
| Maturity | Linked to the girl’s age | A fixed term from opening, extendable in blocks |
| Partial withdrawal | Permitted for higher education after a specified age, subject to conditions | Permitted from a specified year onwards, subject to limits |
| Rate | Set by the issuer, revised periodically | Set by the issuer, revised periodically |
| Tax treatment | Favourable at all three stages under current scheme terms | Favourable at all three stages under current scheme terms |
⚠ Interest rates, deposit periods, withdrawal conditions and limits for both schemes are set by the issuer and are revised. This page does not state them, because a rate printed today is wrong within a year and a reader who finds it later is worse off for having read it. Check the current notification before you compute anything, then use the structure below.
The structural difference that decides it
Sukanya Samriddhi is purpose-built and therefore rigid. It is tied to one girl, it matures on a schedule tied to her age, and the education withdrawal is permitted only in defined circumstances. That rigidity is a feature if your goal matches the schedule and an obstacle if it does not.
PPF is general purpose and therefore flexible. It is not tied to a child at all, its maturity is a function of when you opened it rather than when she was born, and you can extend it in blocks. You can open it years before the child exists and time the maturity yourself.
That last point is the one people do not think of. A PPF account opened the year you married, not the year she was born, matures several years earlier and can be extended to land exactly where you want it.
Worked, on the timing question
Assume ₹1,50,000 a year into either scheme, and an illustrative 7.5% annual return so the two are comparable. This rate is an assumption for illustration only and is not either scheme’s current rate.
| Years of contribution | Total contributed | Value at 7.5% |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | ₹15,00,000 | ₹22,81,000 |
| 15 | ₹22,50,000 | ₹42,12,000 |
| 18 | ₹27,00,000 | ₹57,53,000 |
| 21 | ₹31,50,000 | ₹76,68,000 |
Assumes contributions at the start of each year, a constant 7.5% compounded annually, and no withdrawals. Actual rates are revised and will differ. The 18- and 21-year rows can only be reached in PPF with an extension, because Sukanya Samriddhi accepts deposits for a shorter period than that.
The jump from year 15 to year 21 is about ₹34.6 lakh, of which only ₹9 lakh is new contribution. Compounding does the rest, and it does most of its work at the end. That is the argument for starting early and, just as important, for not interrupting it.
The answer most families arrive at
Use both, for different jobs.
Sukanya Samriddhi for the long, untouchable core. Its rigidity is the point: money you cannot casually redirect is money that survives to 18. Fund it to whatever level you are confident you can sustain, because stopping is penalised and restarting is awkward.
PPF for the flexible layer and for your own retirement. It is not earmarked, it can be extended, and the withdrawal rules are less conditional. If the education need arrives early, or does not arrive at all because she wins a scholarship, PPF adapts and Sukanya Samriddhi does not.
The failure mode worth avoiding is putting everything into the rigid scheme and then finding that a deposit is due in a difficult year.
Three practical points
Open early. Sukanya Samriddhi must be opened before she turns 10, and the difference between opening at 1 and at 9 is eight years of compounding at the end of the account’s life, which is the most valuable eight years there are.
Do not rely on either to fund a foreign degree. The sums above are respectable against Indian fees. Against an overseas course, with currency movement on top, they will be a contribution rather than a solution. If that is the plan, the corpus target is a different calculation and equity almost certainly has to be part of it.
Neither is an equity substitute. Both are debt instruments with administered rates. Over eighteen years an equity allocation has historically done more, with volatility these schemes do not have. Which trade-off suits you is a judgement about your own nerves, not a calculation.
Where this fits
- The side-by-side tool, to project both on your own amount, period and rates: SSY vs PPF
- Project either side: SSY calculator · PPF calculator
- The wider small-savings field: post office schemes compared
- What inflation does to an 18-year target: real return after inflation