College Costs and Child Support Part 2

{3:30 minutes to read}  In my last post, I suggested that a parent that is paying both college costs and child support might be entitled to a reduction in his/her child support payment while the child is away at college. In this final installment, I want to discuss how the amount of the reduction might be determined.

First, the parent paying child support while contributing to the expenses of a child’s college education is only entitled to a credit for the amounts contributed to college expenses during periods when the child is living away from home. And although some cases have held that “college expenses” include tuition, it seems clear that the only expenses that would warrant a reduction in child support would be those related to “room and board.”

Second, the credit must be applied in a way that does not leave the parent that is maintaining the house with insufficient funds to meet the needs of both the children left in the house, and the expenses that parent will still incur in order to meet the needs of the child at college when he/she is back home.

One of the first things to consider is how the “custodial” parents’ expenses are reduced by the child being away at college. While that parent might save on the cost of food, the biggest single expense a person incurs is almost always the cost of housing.

Since the custodial parent must still keep the house, and is likely to be paying the full mortgage, along with utilities, clothing, and other “fixed” expenses for the benefit of the child, the needs of that parent are not going to be reduced very much just because a child is away at college.

These and other questions need to be considered and answered when developing an agreement about how the payment of college costs impacts the amount of child support. While it seems clear that there should be some reduction in child support, it is also clear that a “dollar-for-dollar” reduction might not be fair to the parent that still must maintain the home while a child in college.

Although these are important matters to consider when reaching a support agreement with your ex, I often found, when I was litigating divorces, that these discussions often came at the end of some very difficult negotiations. As a result, they often did not receive the attention that was required to come to an agreement that was fair to both parents.

That is one of the reasons why I believe that these, and other similar decisions involving your children, can be more fully discussed and addressed in mediation, instead of being rushed to make them within the time restraints that are often found in a busy court system.