Married parents and parents who live together can easily share their parental rights and responsibilities. They can pool their resources to afford the costliest elements of raising a child, including college tuition.
However, when parents divorce or separate, affording college as a family can become more difficult. The income of the parents must support two separate households, and damage to the family dynamic may prevent parents from enthusiastically providing financial support. A parent hoping to see their child graduate from college may want to do everything in their power to help their child achieve their ambitions.
Is it possible to continue child support through the college years as a means of providing assistance to an adult child?
Child support isn’t enough for college
There are two main reasons why child support cannot adequately assist a parent paying for college. The first reason is that college is incredibly expensive. Parents often contribute thousands of dollars per semester for tuition and textbooks for their children. Child support might only cover a fraction of those costs, rather than half of them.
More importantly, parents cannot rely on child support to continue through the college years. Child support typically ends when a teenager turns 19. Even when a teen intends to continue their education after high school, the courts still cannot extend the child support order into the young adult’s 20s.
Parents who address child support matters carefully, including the need for support after child support technically ends, can help to ensure that their children have a bright future. Making arrangements for major expenses that child support cannot cover can take pressure off of parents.