The Court of Appeals recently decided Lovold v. Ellis, 988 N.E.2d 1144.    The trial court that that the parties’ son had repudiated the parental relationship, negating any college obligations.    Child support, however, cannot be terminated based on repudiation.   The question was whether college living expenses which would not be incurred if the child lived at home were properly college expenses or child support.

The Court of Appeals, noted that

“When a trial court enters both an educational support order and a child support order, as it has the discretion to do, child support must be reduced for the expenses that are “duplicated by the educational support order.” Ind. Code § 31-16-6-2(b)(1). When both orders are entered, the Indiana Child Support Guidelines specifically require a reduction in child support for the time the child is living away from home for college. See Support Guideline 8(b) (“The impact of an award of post-secondary educational expenses is substantial upon the custodial and non-custodial parent and a reduction of the Basic Child Support Obligation attributable to the child in question will be required when [t]he child resides on campus or otherwise is not with the custodial parent.”). The post-secondary education worksheet takes into account how many weeks during the year the child is living with the custodial parent and holds the non-custodial parent responsible for child support for only that number of weeks. See Support Guideline 8(c). The amount is then annualized to avoid weekly variations. Id. Thus, it is clear that while a court may order college expenses and child support, living expenses for a child living on campus should be included in the educational support order and not in the child support order.   We hold that living expenses for a child living on campus should similarly not be included in the child support order when, as here, the child has repudiated the parent and the parent is therefore not required to contribute to the child’s post-secondary education. To hold otherwise would render repudiation no longer a complete defense to the payment of college expenses.”

The father, therefore, did not owe any college living expenses.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2476786026897587202&q=lovold+ellis&hl=en&as_sdt=4,15