Raising children to adulthood is no simple task. Parents often have to make many sacrifices regarding how they spend their time and money. Those sacrifices often continue even after the children are technically adults.
Parents frequently provide ongoing support for children who want to attend college. Most students cannot work and attend college full-time. Even if they do work while attending classes, the wages available to college students are often far lower than the total cost of tuition.
Having access to financial support from parents can often make or break a teenager’s ambitions for higher education. Often, the income of one parent isn’t enough to comfortably cover college expenses. Can a parent receiving child support request continued support through the college years if their child continues their schooling after high school?
Child support can help with college expenses
In many states, child support ends at a certain age or after a teenager graduates from high school. New Jersey has relatively generous child support rules that look at the practical needs of teenagers and young adults. Child support can continue into the college years if the young adult in need of support remains enrolled in school full-time.
Parents can petition the courts to continue child support after a young adult turns 19 if the child continues attending school full-time. This rule applies to not just special needs teenagers who may continue attending public school programs into their early twenties but also teenagers headed to college.
New Jersey can order the continuation of child support throughout the college years. However, such orders are likely to fall far short of the total cost of college. Additionally, current support laws only allow child support to continue until the student turns 23.
Parents may realize that support is insufficient for the extreme expenses involved in higher education. They may cooperate with one another and reach an agreement that allows them to fully share the costs of higher education for their ambitious student.
Learning more about New Jersey’s child support statutes can help people as they negotiate with their spouses or review their finances. College-bound children often need careful consideration from divorced or separated parents to ensure that divorce doesn’t negatively affect their educational ambitions.
