Your child is a junior or senior, the college visits have started, and the question you have been putting off is finally on the table: who pays? If you and your child's other parent are divorced, paying for college after divorce in South Carolina is not settled by good intentions or by who has custody. It turns on what your divorce papers say, and, if they say nothing, on a line of South Carolina Supreme Court decisions that lets a family court order a parent to contribute in the right case.

Short answer

South Carolina child support normally ends at eighteen or at high school graduation. But a family court can order a divorced parent to help pay for college when the child will benefit from it, can do the work, cannot go without the help, and the parent can afford to contribute. Parents can also agree to share college costs in their settlement agreement, and once the court approves that agreement it is enforceable like any other part of the decree.

Paying for college after divorce starts with when child support ends

The family court's power over child support comes from S.C. Code § 63-3-530(A)(17). Under that section, orders for child support run until the child turns eighteen, marries, or becomes self-supporting, or past eighteen while the child “is enrolled and still attending high school, not to exceed high school graduation or the end of the school year after the child reaches nineteen years of age, whichever is later.”

The same sentence then lists the ways support can run longer: “in accordance with a preexisting agreement or order to provide for child support past the age of eighteen years,” or, in the court's discretion, where there are physical or mental disabilities of the child “or other exceptional circumstances that warrant the continuation of child support beyond age eighteen.” College lives in that last phrase.

The Risinger rule: college as an “exceptional circumstance”

In Risinger v. Risinger, 273 S.C. 36, 253 S.E.2d 652 (1979), the father argued the family court had no power to make him support a nineteen-year-old college student. The Supreme Court disagreed. It wrote that “[t]he need for education is the most likely additional ‘exceptional circumstance’ which might justify continued financial support,” and it affirmed an order requiring him to pay $100 a month toward his daughter's schooling for as long as she kept passing grades and did not marry.

The Court also set out the test family courts still use. A judge may require a parent to contribute the money needed for a child over eighteen to attend high school and four years of college where there is evidence that:

• •the characteristics of the child indicate that he or she will benefit from college;
• •the child demonstrates the ability to do well, or at least make satisfactory grades;
• •the child cannot otherwise go to school; and
• •the parent has the financial ability to help pay for such an education.

The Court was careful to say these are not the only circumstances that can justify an award, and that the decision “must be left largely in the hands of our family court judges.” That is why two families with similar facts can get different results, and why the evidence you put in front of the judge matters.

The 2010 detour and the 2012 correction

For about two years, a South Carolina family court could not order a parent to contribute to college at all. In Webb v. Sowell, 387 S.C. 328, 692 S.E.2d 543 (2010), the Supreme Court held that the Risinger reading of the statute violated equal protection. Then, in McLeod v. Starnes, 396 S.C. 647, 723 S.E.2d 198 (2012), the Court overruled Webb and restored the Risinger rule.

The McLeod majority was clear about what the rule is and is not. “There is no absolute right to a college education,” it wrote, and the statute as read in Risinger “does not impose a moral obligation on all divorced parents with children.” Instead, the factors “seek to identify those children whose parents would otherwise have paid for their college education, but for the divorce, and provide them with that benefit.” That sentence is a useful way to think about any college claim: the question is what this family would likely have done if it had stayed together.

How the four factors play out

Benefit and ability are usually the easy part. A student with a solid high school record and a plan is the typical case. The fights tend to be over the third and fourth factors.

Whether the child can go without the parent's help. Courts look at grants, loans, and what the student can earn during the school year and over the summer. In Hughes v. Hughes, 280 S.C. 388, 313 S.E.2d 32 (Ct. App. 1984), the daughter had covered most of her costs with loans, a scholarship, and part-time work, and the father was ordered to pay $300 a semester toward what was left. The Court of Appeals described a college student's “duty to help minimize college expenses.” The Supreme Court later noted that, although it treats grants and the student's ability to earn as factors, it has “never held that there is a duty under Risinger for a child to minimize college expenses.” In practice, a student who applies for aid and works when possible makes a much stronger case for help than one who does neither.

Whether the parent can afford to help. Hughes also held there is “no limitation that child support payments be made solely from current earnings.” The father's monthly expenses exceeded his income on paper, but he had assets, and the court found those were enough to cover a modest contribution.

Private colleges and expensive choices. In McLeod, the family court had also relied on the fact that the son chose a private college. The Supreme Court said cost is relevant but that attending a private school “does not foreclose an award.” The tuition is weighed together with scholarships, grants, and loans and with the parents' ability to pay in deciding whether to award anything and how much.

Scholarships, grants, and veterans' benefits come first

Before anyone argues about a parent's share, add up what the student can get elsewhere. In a Risinger case, that is the heart of the question whether the child can attend without the parent's help. Under an agreement, it matters whenever the clause says aid is applied first. For South Carolina students, these are the usual sources.

Lottery-funded state scholarships. The South Carolina Commission on Higher Education administers the Palmetto Fellows Scholarship, the LIFE Scholarship, and the HOPE Scholarship (a freshman-year award at four-year schools for students who do not qualify for LIFE or Palmetto Fellows), along with Lottery Tuition Assistance at two-year and technical colleges. Each has its own academic requirements, renewal rules, and award amounts, which the Commission sets and updates, so a scholarship a student has as a freshman is not certain to last four years.

Need-based grants. The South Carolina Need-Based Grant and the federal Pell Grant both depend on the family's finances, and both require the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). A settlement agreement or order should say who completes the FAFSA and when, because a missed deadline can cost the student money that does not have to be repaid.

Free tuition for children of certain veterans. Under S.C. Code § 59-111-20, a child of a wartime veteran may attend a state-supported college, university, or technical college “free of tuition” with approval from the South Carolina Department of Veterans' Affairs. The veteran must meet one of the statute's service conditions, such as being killed in action, permanently and totally disabled, a former prisoner of war, or a Purple Heart or Medal of Honor recipient, and the child must be twenty-six or younger and pursuing an undergraduate degree. 2026 Act No. 135, effective May 15, 2026, rewrote the residency requirements and added a new route for a child who has lived in South Carolina since birth. The waiver covers tuition only; fees, housing, meals, and books remain.

VA Chapter 35 benefits. Survivors' and Dependents' Educational Assistance (often called Chapter 35) pays a monthly education benefit to the child of a veteran who, for example, is permanently and totally disabled due to a service-connected disability or died as a result of one. How it is paid matters as much as how much. VA pays the student directly, not the school. Under 38 C.F.R. § 21.4138(e), VA pays only after the school certifies the enrollment and the student verifies it, generally every month, which results in monthly payments. A month the student is only partly enrolled is prorated by the number of days enrolled. And an advance payment at the start of a term is made only if the student specifically asks for one.

The practical result is that Chapter 35 money works like a reimbursement, not an advance. It arrives month by month after the student has attended, while tuition and housing bills are due at registration. A college clause or order involving a Chapter 35 student should say whether the benefit reduces the parents' share, and who covers the bills up front while the monthly payments catch up.

If your decree says nothing about college

A decree that is silent on college does not end the question. In Hughes, the parents had divorced in 1972 under an order that covered their “minor children,” and the mother brought a new action in 1980 when their daughter was eighteen and headed to college. The father argued the old order barred the claim. The Court of Appeals held that it did not, because the daughter's plans for college were a change in circumstances that did not exist when the original order was entered.

Timing still matters in practice. A request for college support is easier to present while a child support case is open, or before the existing order ends, than after the student is already enrolled and the bills have been paid by one parent alone. If college is two or three years away, that is the time to talk with a Charleston family law attorney about your options.

If you are negotiating a settlement now: write the college clause carefully

Many college disputes in Charleston, Berkeley, and Dorchester County family courts start with an agreement, not a Risinger claim. Parents who agree to share college costs usually mean it when they sign. The trouble comes years later, when the words have to answer a question nobody asked at the time. Our post on Fennell v. Fennell and contempt for unpaid college expenses shows how a clear clause gets enforced, and how a vague one invites a second lawsuit.

A workable college clause usually answers these questions:

• •What counts as a college expense: tuition and required fees only, or also room and board, books, a laptop, travel, and spending money?
• •Is there a cap, such as the cost of in-state tuition and fees at a South Carolina public university?
• •How are scholarships, grants, and existing 529 or other college savings accounts applied, and are they applied before the parents split the rest? Do student loans count, or only aid that does not have to be repaid? Do a veterans' tuition waiver or Chapter 35 payments count?
• •Who pays the tuition bill at registration when some aid, such as Chapter 35, arrives later in monthly payments?
• •What is the split: equal shares, or in proportion to income?
• •What does the student have to do to keep the support going: full-time enrollment, a minimum GPA, applying for financial aid, working in the summer? If the agreement does not say, a court will not add it.
• •How long does the obligation last: four years, a set number of semesters, or until a certain age?
• •Who gets the bills and grades, and how quickly? Colleges deal with the student as an adult, so the agreement should require the student's cooperation in sharing that information.
• •Is payment made to the school, to the student, or to the other parent?

The words matter because the family court reads a college agreement as a contract, and the South Carolina Supreme Court has shown how literally it will do that. In McDuffie v. McDuffie, 313 S.C. 397, 438 S.E.2d 239 (1993), the Court held that such agreements “are not modifiable by the Court without the consent of the parties,” and that because nothing in the agreement required the daughter to keep her costs down, she had no duty to do so. It also found the phrase “all college expenses,” standing alone, “patently ambiguous.”

In Ellis v. Taylor, 316 S.C. 245, 449 S.E.2d 487 (1994), the father had agreed to pay reasonable college expenses “to the extent that such expenses are not provided by any scholarship, grant or other assistance.” The Court would not reduce his share based on his finances or his son's ability to work, because the agreement did not say to. It held that “other assistance” did not include loans that have to be repaid. And a separate promise that the parents “shall agree to an amount” for household support once each child started college was void as too indefinite to enforce. The lesson for a clause written today: if you want scholarships, loans, the student's earnings, or a cap to count, say so, and do not leave any number to be agreed on later.

Get the arrangement into the court-approved agreement rather than an exchange of texts. Informal side deals tend to fail in family court, for the same reason our post on why direct child support payments do not count explains: the court enforces the order as written.

What paying for college after divorce looks like in court

If the parents cannot agree, the parent seeking help files an action in family court, or asks for college expenses as part of a pending case. Expect to exchange financial declarations and to prove each factor with documents: transcripts and test scores, acceptance letters, the college's cost of attendance, financial aid award letters, and the student's own earnings. The judge can order a monthly amount, a percentage split, or a contribution toward specific costs. Once ordered, the obligation is enforceable through the family court, and a parent who stops paying risks the enforcement process described in our Fennell post.

Frequently asked questions

Do divorced parents have to pay for college in South Carolina?

Not automatically. A parent can be ordered to contribute when the Risinger factors are met, and a parent who agreed to pay in a court-approved settlement agreement can be held to that agreement. There is no blanket rule that every divorced parent must pay.

What are the Risinger factors?

The child will benefit from college, the child can make at least satisfactory grades, the child cannot attend without the parent's help, and the parent has the financial ability to help. The family court has discretion in weighing them.

Does a scholarship reduce what a parent pays?

It depends on where the obligation comes from. When a court decides a Risinger claim, scholarships, grants, loans, and the student's own earnings all bear on whether a parent's help is needed and how much. When the obligation comes from an agreement, the agreement controls: aid reduces a parent's share only if the agreement says it does.

Can I be ordered to help pay for a private college?

Possibly. The Supreme Court has said a private school's cost is relevant but does not rule out an award. The court weighs the tuition against financial aid and the parents' ability to pay.

Our divorce was final years ago and the decree does not mention college. Is it too late?

Not necessarily. The Court of Appeals has allowed a college claim years after the original decree because the child's college plans were a new circumstance. Talk to an attorney before the current support order ends if you can.

Talk to a Charleston family law attorney about college costs

Whether you are negotiating a college clause, asking the court for help with tuition, or defending against a claim you think goes too far, the details decide these cases. Klok Law Firm represents parents in child support, modification and enforcement matters across Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Berkeley, and Dorchester Counties. Call Klok Law at (843) 701-1695 to discuss your options.

This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. For advice about your specific situation, contact Klok Law at (843) 701-1695.