Legal Question in Family Law in Missouri

Re: Child Support and College in MO

The child support statute does provide that your child support obligation does continue past yoru child's eighteenth birthday if she enrolls full time in college by October 1 following her graduation from high school and completes various other requirements. She must take at least twelve credit hours unless she is working at least fifteen hours per week in which case she need only take nine credit hours. She must make passing grades. She must provide you with documentation from the college on a semester by semester basis showing that she is enrolled in the proper amount of credit hours and making the grade. Most kids do not know anything about this requirement, but many judges will ignore their failure to comply with it under those circumstances, so be sure that she knows what she is supposed to do. The child support obligation ends when the child either graduates from ollege or reaches the age of twenty-two whichever comes first. At that time you should file a Motion to Terminate the child support obligation so that there is a Court Order officially in place. I do not know if there is any Judgment under which you are Ordered to pay any part of the expense of her education, but if there is one, that obligation is usually on top of the regular child support paid to the custodial parent.