Away from home university cost-sharing

[whyme?]

My daughter is 21 and has been a fulltime university student locally for the past 3 years (technically she switched universities after 2nd year but was remote last year). She's having to move to another city in Ontario to finish her undergrad by studying 3 straight semesters (1 full calendar year). I've been paying $1100/month CS to her mother and using a RESP for tuition, etc costs. That RESP is now empty.

My daughter's estimate of monthly living costs is $1800 and she has offered to pay $600....my ex is suggesting that she pay $600 out of the CS (keeping $500 for "living expenses" and I pay another $600 on top of the child support. This seems unreasonable to me as my daughter will be away for a year straight and is non-committal about moving back with her mom after university. Plus she's taking CS money that I pay and essentially claiming it as her contribution.

I'm trying to sort out what is a fair and reasonable compromise here....without involving lawyers. FWIW my ex lied and told FRO that I wasn't paying CS (not once did I ever not pay fully and on time) so FRO have been doing auto-withdrawals from my bank account i.e. I can't change anything CS-related without FRO involvement.

Any suggestions welcomed! Thanks!

 

[rockscan]

If kid isn’t living st home, CS is not paid. You would share 2/3 of the cost (kid pays 1/3) proportionate to income.

You need an order to change the cs. If you have overpaid because she lied, you need to fix that.

As for the costs for school, it is 2/3 proportionate to income less the tax deductions so make sure you aren’t/or haven’t been overpaying.

 

[Tayken]

I would be careful with the statement above that:

“If kid isn’t living at home, CS is not paid. You would share 2/3 of the cost (kid pays 1/3) proportionate to income.”

Neither proposition is an automatic rule under Ontario family law.

The starting point is that your daughter is 21 and therefore an adult child for Child Support Guidelines purposes. Section 3(2) of the Guidelines governs support for a child over the age of majority. The ordinary table amount remains the starting point under s. 3(2)(a), but where that approach would be inappropriate the court may instead determine an appropriate amount under s. 3(2)(b), having regard to the child’s condition, means, needs and other circumstances, as well as the financial ability of each parent to contribute.

Living away from home for university can make the ordinary table-support approach inappropriate. It does not automatically terminate child support.

That distinction was addressed by the Ontario Court of Appeal in Park v. Thompson, 2005 CanLII 14132 (ON CA), 77 O.R. (3d) 601, 252 D.L.R. (4th) 730, 13 R.F.L. (6th) 415. The Court of Appeal considered support for an adult child attending post-secondary education and confirmed that the question under s. 3(2) is whether application of the ordinary Guidelines approach remains appropriate in the circumstances of that particular adult child. The fact that a child is attending university away from home is relevant to that analysis, but it does not create an automatic statutory rule that table child support simply disappears.

The Ontario Court of Appeal subsequently dealt with the issue in substantially greater detail in Lewi v. Lewi, 2006 CanLII 15446 (ON CA), 80 O.R. (3d) 321, 267 D.L.R. (4th) 193, 28 R.F.L. (6th) 250.

Lewi v. Lewi is particularly important here because the Court was dealing with two adult children attending university, one living away from home and one living at home, together with claims for both ordinary child support and post-secondary expenses.

The Court of Appeal rejected both extreme positions advanced by the parents.

The mother argued, in substance, that the parents should pay the post-secondary expenses without requiring the children to draw materially on their own assets.

The father argued that the children should essentially exhaust their own resources before the parents contributed.

The Court rejected both approaches.

The Court held that when determining an adult child’s contribution toward post-secondary education, the child’s “means” includes both income and capital. The amount the child should contribute is discretionary and depends upon the means of the child, the means of the parents, and the circumstances of the particular case.

Importantly, Lewi v. Lewi did NOT establish a one-third contribution by the child.

Quite the opposite.

On the particular facts before the Court, the child attending university away from home was ultimately required to contribute 50% of his educational expenses before the parents proportionately divided the remaining balance.

The other child, who remained living at home and for whom full table child support continued to be paid, was required to fund 100% of his university expenses from his own substantial assets.

Different children. Same family. Different results.

That alone demonstrates why there cannot be an automatic “child pays one-third” rule.

The recent Ontario Court of Justice decision in Tan v. Rondilla, 2026 ONCJ 218, is also useful because it illustrates how a one-third contribution can arise WITHOUT turning one-third into a rule.

In Tan v. Rondilla, Justice O’Connell considered substantial retroactive and ongoing claims for post-secondary expenses. The Court expressly relied upon the principles from Lewi v. Lewi when determining what contribution the adult children should reasonably make toward their university expenses.

On the particular evidence in Tan v. Rondilla, the Court ultimately fixed the children’s contribution at 33.33%.

But that was an exercise of judicial discretion based upon those children’s circumstances.

It was not because the Guidelines contain a rule requiring every university student to pay one-third.

They do not.

Section 7(2) of the Child Support Guidelines says that the guiding principle is that special or extraordinary expenses are shared by the parents in proportion to their respective incomes after deducting from the expense the contribution, if any, from the child.

The words “if any” matter.

So the proper sequence is conceptually:

Reasonable post-secondary expenses

LESS applicable subsidies, benefits, scholarships, grants and relevant tax consequences

LESS the child’s reasonable contribution, if any

EQUALS the net parental expense.

The remaining parental expense is then shared in proportion to the parents’ respective Guideline incomes.

And this is where there is a very large piece of information missing from your post:

What are your respective Guideline incomes?

Without that information nobody can calculate whether another $600 from you is reasonable.

For example, purely to illustrate the mathematics:

If Parent A earns $120,000 and Parent B earns $60,000, the parental proportional sharing ratio is approximately:

66.7% / 33.3%.

Reverse those incomes and the proportional obligation reverses.

Same child.

Same university.

Same $1,800 expense.

Completely different parental contribution.

That is why an arbitrary “$600/$600/$600” arrangement tells us very little unless it coincidentally happens to reproduce the proper proportional calculation.

There is also another issue with the proposal as you have described it.

You presently pay $1,100 per month in child support.

Your ex proposes taking $600 from that existing $1,100 payment and transferring it toward your daughter’s $1,800 monthly living costs, retaining $500 herself, while requiring you to pay another $600.

Economically, the proposed $600 being forwarded from the existing child-support stream is not a new independent $600 contribution originating from your ex.

That does NOT mean that you continue to own or control child-support money once it has been paid.

It means something different.

When determining what the appropriate overall support structure should now be, the existing $1,100 payment cannot simply disappear from the accounting while the same shelter and food expenses are simultaneously being claimed through an away-from-home university budget.

This issue also appears in Tan v. Rondilla, 2026 ONCJ 218.

After determining the appropriate post-secondary expenses and calculating the father’s proportional responsibility, the Court also considered the fact that full table child support had already been paid during periods when the children were living away from home attending university. The Court made an adjustment to avoid producing an inappropriate result from the interaction between table support and the university-expense calculation.

That is an important point in your situation.

There are really TWO related calculations:

1. Section 3(2) adult-child support

What amount of ordinary child support remains appropriate now that your 21-year-old daughter will apparently be residing away from her mother’s home for three consecutive semesters?

AND

2. Section 7 post-secondary expenses

What are the daughter's reasonable educational and away-from-home expenses, what contribution should reasonably be expected from her, and how should the remaining expense be allocated proportionately between her parents?

You cannot properly calculate #2 while pretending #1 does not exist.

Nor should anyone simply declare #1 to be zero without doing the s. 3(2) analysis.

... continued ...

 

[Tayken]

Your situation is also somewhat different from many of the university cases because you say your daughter will be studying for THREE consecutive semesters over an entire calendar year.

So the often-seen arrangement where a student is away for eight months and returns home for four summer months may not describe your daughter's circumstances at all.

I would want one complete 12-month budget before agreeing to anything.

That should identify, at minimum:

• tuition;
• mandatory university fees;
• books and required supplies;
• rent or residence costs;
• food or meal-plan expenses;
• transportation;
• scholarships;
• bursaries;
• grants;
• employment income;
• savings reasonably available to the daughter;
• any remaining RESP resources;
• student loans;
• the source of the daughter's proposed $600 contribution; and
• any actual ongoing expenses your ex says she continues to incur maintaining a home base for your daughter.

That last item should not simply be assumed away either.

Your ex retaining $500 of the existing child support is not automatically unreasonable merely because your daughter is away.

There may still be legitimate expenses associated with maintaining a home base for her.

But “living expenses” is not a calculation.

What expenses?

If there is a bedroom being maintained, insurance, utilities, clothing, transportation, food when she returns, telephone expenses or other continuing support being provided, put those numbers on the table.

Then the parties can determine what amount of continuing s. 3(2) support, if any, remains appropriate.

There is another distinction worth making regarding the daughter's proposed contribution.

A scholarship, bursary or grant is not necessarily equivalent to a student loan.

In Tan v. Rondilla, 2026 ONCJ 218, the Court recognized the important distinction between non-repayable educational assistance and borrowed money. A student loan does not necessarily reduce the true economic cost of education in the same way as a scholarship or grant because the student remains liable to repay the borrowed amount.

So before somebody simply deducts “$600 from the daughter,” determine where that $600 actually comes from.

The RESP should also be accounted for factually.

You say it has now been exhausted.

Fine.

Then its prospective contribution may presently be zero.

But if the parties are trying to understand what has already been paid toward the university education, they should at least know what RESP funds were previously used and for what expenses. That does not automatically mean previous years need to be reopened. It simply means the accounting should use actual numbers rather than assumptions.

Finally, FRO does not determine any of this.

FRO enforces the support obligation presently registered with it.

It does not decide whether your daughter living away makes $1,100 inappropriate, what her university budget should be, how much she should contribute, or how the remaining expense should be divided between the parents.

So do NOT unilaterally stop paying the $1,100 because somebody on the Internet tells you that support automatically stops when a university student moves away.

The enforceable order remains the enforceable order until it is properly changed.

If you and your ex want to resolve this without lawyers, there is nothing preventing you from exchanging the necessary income and expense documentation and doing the calculation yourselves.

But proper income disclosure is essential.

If this turns into a contested support/change proceeding, then you are into the Ontario Family Law Rules financial disclosure regime, including a Form 13 Financial Statement where applicable, income documentation and proof of the claimed section 7 expenses.

So before debating whether the answer is:

$600 daughter
$600 mother
$600 father

I would ask for the inputs.

The legislation and cases do not give you a rule of thirds.

They give you a methodology.

And without the parents' respective incomes, the daughter's actual means, the complete university budget, the continuing home-base expenses, and the treatment of the existing $1,100 child-support payment, nobody in this thread has enough information to calculate the answer.

 

[rockscan]

Respectfully, Tayken is correct with his case law but having been in front of a GTA judge for a motion in 2018, the interpretation was four months of summer support split over the full year and 1/3 to the child. The judge actually said that if it went to trial and kid could have completed a similar course of study while living at home, their share may have been determined as higher than 1/3.

My position is that every case is unique but the starting point is no support for months away from home and 1/3 cost to kid. It sounds like kid was at home for the first few years and would now be living away before completing their degree. That tells me they are not coming back for the summer erego no support should come up before they cease being a child of tge marriage.

Either way, mom doesn’t get to claim child support is her share of the cost. That’s basically dad paying twice for the same expense. Mom has a share independent of cs and dad’s share.

 

[Tayken]

Respectfully, Tayken is correct with his case law but having been in front of a GTA judge for a motion in 2018, the interpretation was four months of summer support split over the full year and 1/3 to the child. The judge actually said that if it went to trial and kid could have completed a similar course of study while living at home, their share may have been determined as higher than 1/3.

My position is that every case is unique but the starting point is no support for months away from home and 1/3 cost to kid. It sounds like kid was at home for the first few years and would now be living away before completing their degree. That tells me they are not coming back for the summer erego no support should come up before they cease being a child of tge marriage.

Either way, mom doesn’t get to claim child support is her share of the cost. That’s basically dad paying twice for the same expense. Mom has a share independent of cs and dad’s share.

Rockscan is directionally right on the important part: if an adult child is living away at university, you need to revisit how ordinary child support and the university expenses fit together, and the parents generally share the net section 7 expense proportionately to income.

Where I would qualify the post is the wording that “CS is not paid” and that the child “pays 1/3.”

Neither is an automatic rule.

Under s. 3(2) of the Child Support Guidelines, living away at university can make the normal table amount inappropriate, but the result depends on the adult child’s means, needs and circumstances and the parents’ ability to contribute.

The Ontario Court of Appeal addressed this in Park v. Thompson, 2005 CanLII 14132 (ON CA), and more directly in Lewi v. Lewi, 2006 CanLII 15446 (ON CA).

Likewise, there is no mandatory one-third contribution by the child. In Lewi v. Lewi, different children in the same family were required to contribute different amounts based on their circumstances. In Tan v. Rondilla, 2026 ONCJ 218, the court used a 33.33% contribution, but that was a fact-specific result, not a rule.

So Rockscan is correct that the remaining post-secondary expense is generally shared between the parents proportionately according to income.

The problem is that we cannot calculate that from this thread because we do not know the parents’ respective Guideline incomes.

We also cannot ignore the existing $1,100 monthly child support.

If $600 of that existing $1,100 is being forwarded to the daughter, while the father is then asked to pay another $600, the existing support has to be reconciled with the away-from-home budget. Otherwise there is a risk of counting the same shelter/food needs twice.

That does not mean the mother should necessarily receive nothing while the daughter is away. She may still have legitimate home-base expenses. But the retained $500 should be supported by actual expenses, not just labelled “living expenses.”

So I would agree with Rockscan on the overall structure:

• revisit the existing child support;
• determine the daughter’s reasonable contribution;
• determine the net university expense;
• share the parental balance proportionately to income; and
• get the support order changed properly rather than unilaterally changing payments.

Where I disagree is treating “no CS while away” and “child pays one-third” as fixed rules.

There simply is not enough information in the thread yet to calculate the proper amount.