What Can Child Support Be Used For?

The purpose of child support is to make sure children get the financial support they need from both parents, no matter the relationship between the parents. The custodial parent is responsible for using child support money to meet the child's needs, though the law gives the parent significant flexibility in how they spend it.

While judges don't require custodial parents to account for every dollar, the money is meant for the child, not the parent. Understanding what child support should and shouldn't cover can help parents avoid conflict and stay focused on their child's well-being.

What Can Child Support Be Used For?

Every state has its own rules for calculating child support. A judge or a child support agency will use your state's guidelines to figure out how much one parent pays the other. The goal is to make sure the child's basic needs are met.

Basic needs include things like food, clothing, and a safe place to live. But child support can also help pay for other costs of raising a child, such as:

• school tuition
• fees for extracurricular activities
• health care, and
• child care.

What Are Basic Needs in Child Support?

Child support can always be used to cover a child's basic needs. For example, you can use child support money to:

• make sure that your child has well-fitting clothing for all seasons
• make rent or mortgage payments so the child has a safe place to live, and
• cover transportation expenses for the child, including car payments, fuel, bus fares, and any other costs associated with getting the child to and from home, school, family visits, and other places and activities.

Does Child Support Cover Health Insurance and Medical Costs?

By law, every child support order must address health insurance. If a parent has access to health insurance through their job or another source at a reasonable cost, the court will order that parent to enroll the child in the plan. The court will look at both parents' options and choose the one that provides good coverage at a reasonable price. For expenses not fully covered by insurance, like co-pays, courts usually require both parents to share costs equally or based on their incomes.

If neither parent has access to affordable health insurance, the court may instead order cash medical support, which is a monthly dollar amount added to the child support payment to help cover the cost of getting insurance or paying medical bills directly.

If the child receives government-sponsored health coverage, like Medicaid, the court generally won't need to order a parent to provide private insurance, though cash medical support may still be ordered to cover expenses insurance doesn't fully cover.

Does Child Support Cover Child Care Costs?

Child care is another, often unavoidable, expense that basic child support guidelines don't fully cover. States handle child care costs differently. Some states split the cost equally between the parents. Others require each parent to contribute based on their income and how much time they spend with the child.

Does Child Support Cover Private School Tuition and School Expenses?

Some parents choose to send their children to private school for religious or personal reasons. Many states require that private school tuition be factored into the child support calculation. If it isn't, the custodial parent can still use child support funds to cover tuition. Child support can also be used to pay for other school-related costs like supplies and field trips.

Does Child Support Cover College?

In most states, the age of majority (when the law considers a person to be an adult) is 18. A parent’s obligation to pay child support doesn’t necessarily end at age 18, though.

In some states, like Illinois, courts have the authority to order parents to continue to financially support their child through college or other post-secondary education, sometimes even graduate school. In these situations, courts will consider factors such as:

• the degree to which the child is still financially dependent on the parents
• the parents’ expectations for the child (for example, did the parents always plan that the child would attend college?)
• the financial circumstances of the parents, and
• whether alternative funding resources (such as loans or financial aid) are available to the child.

Extras Not Always Included in a Child Support Order

Basic child support doesn't cover all the costs of raising a child. Examples of common expenses that may not be included in a standard child support order include:

• fees and costs for extracurricular activities like sports teams and music lessons
• uniforms or musical instrument costs
• summer camp
• tutoring, and
• major medical costs not covered by insurance.

Because these expenses aren't automatically part of a child support order, parents will often need to work out a written agreement on how to share these costs and then ask a judge to make that agreement part of the official child support order.

Can the Paying Parent Monitor or Challenge Child Support Spending?

As a general rule, the parent who pays child support can't control how the other parent spends it. Custodial parents aren't required to track or report their spending, which makes it very hard for a paying parent to prove the money is being misused, unless the child's basic needs are being ignored.

That being said, some states allow a judge to order the receiving parent to provide an accounting of how child support money was spent, but these procedures are rarely used and typically only when there's real evidence of neglect or misuse, not just disagreements over spending.

Can a Child Support Order Be Changed?

Every state has a process for reviewing and potentially modifying child support orders. However, most states require a change in circumstances, such as a change in either parent's income, a change in parenting time, or a major shift in the child's needs, before a judge will change the amount.

Asking for a modification isn't the same as asking the court to investigate how the other parent is spending money. A child support review involves looking at both parents' financial situations and the child's needs to determine if the current support amount is appropriate.

When to Get Help Resolving a Child Support Dispute

If you and your co-parent can’t see eye-to-eye on how child support is being used, consider mediation. A neutral third party can help both of you work through the conflict and come to an agreement that both of you can live with. The mediator can't change the child support order, but can help you avoid a costly court battle.

If you suspect the custodial parent is failing to meet your child’s basic needs—to the point of abuse or neglect—it’s time to get legal help. Contact a local family law attorney who specializes in child custody and child support matters, or reach out to your local child support agency to figure out the next best step.