Parents who separate or divorce have to share responsibility for their children. Typically, that means sharing time with their children and cooperating to make major decisions. Parents also share financial responsibility.
In scenarios involving an uneven division of parenting time or discrepancies in income, one parent may have to provide the other with child support. Child support helps cover basic expenses for dependent children. Can mandatory child support continue through college and help cover the costs of post-secondary education?
Child support typically ends with high school
Some states allow child support to continue for years after a young adult technically becomes a legal adult. Texas is not one of those states.
The law in Texas is very clear about how child support typically terminates when a child turns 18 or graduates from high school, whichever happens later. There are some exceptions for cases involving children with special needs who may never live independently.
Otherwise, parents receiving child support typically cannot expect payments to continue through a young adult’s college years. Even if support orders last longer, the amount of support ordered by the family courts is usually insufficient to cover the costs of even community college, let alone private or state college costs.
Parents concerned that divorce could impact the college ambitions of their children may want to negotiate arrangements to share those costs directly with one another. They typically cannot rely on the courts to impose financial obligations during the college years.
Learning about child support rules may make it easier for parents to ensure that they can meet the needs of their shared children. Parents who know when child support ends may plan more effectively to cover a young adult’s future educational expenses.
