He's responsible to pay her the ordered amount until it changes. If he's got proof that BM is holding her back, he can take that before a judge to try to get CS reduced/stopped. Sadly, some women do this in the hope that they'll get CS longer. It sucks, and your DH should try to let a judge see what she's up to.

You should check your custody order or state laws on when child support ends. I'm in Utah and our laws say CS goes until age 18 or the normal and expected High School graduation, whichever is later. This is meant to ensure CS is paid through the senior year of high school since our school timing means most kids turn 18 at some point during their senior year.

My SD 20 dropped out of school at some point during her senior year. We were (and still are) pretty estranged so we didn't know she had dropped out though we suspected. SD turned 18 in May of her senior year and her normal and expected graduation would have been in June. So we were only looking at a 1 month past 18 CS situation. I did do some checking when we suspected she wasn't going to school and if we could prove her BM has signed her out and the school had officially removed her from the attendance roles, we could have had CS end in May rather than continue the extra month. It would have taken a lot of jumping through hoops since SD wasn't speaking to us and BM as the CS collector had no incentive to end her payout a month early by giving us access to the info we needed so DH ended up doing nothing.

If you can prove your SD has dropped out of HS, you might be able to ensure CS terminates at 18 and doesn't extend.

I agree that graduation is super important, I'm not sure how my SD will ever get or hold a job when she surfaces without even a GED, but there isn't much you can do as the non-custodial from a distance unless you are prepared to take court action to get custody. However, my DH is a teacher and in his experience with failing students, unless there is a super intervention by the parents prepared to do all the hard things, there isn't much you can do to make a failing teen graduate. The only time he has seen it work is in enact families prepared to take everything away and ride the kid non stop until the grades come up.

Good luck, the best you might expect is just ensuring CS stops at 18. Your SD is making choices about school that have lifelong consequences, but you likely can't do much from a distance about it.

What about encouraging her to switch to an Alternative school? Reside with her BM, she has the job which I hear is required, and she can go at her pace. Making her feel like its her choice so she can ask her BM if she can switch schools.

So you really want her to graduate with her class just to avoid paying extra CS? I honestly understand your position but if she graduates but isnt learning any skill or trsde, isnt able to get into college (grades) then your DH may end up shelling out thousands of miney helping to support her because she cant make enough at a minimum wage job. I suggest giving her a deadline to get her grades up and if she doesn't, she has to live with you. Being a parent means making sacrifices sometimes so your husband may need to suck it up.

We were in the same boat. BM had my SD start school a year late, then had her held back in fourth grade. Yes, SD was 2 years behind and we were going to be paying CS for an extra 2 years (until she was 20). I did want her to graduate high school, even if it was 2 years late. But yes, I did resent that we were going to pay CS for an extra 2 years.

Part of the reason I resented it, was because my DH tried to tell BM that SD need extra help but BM didn't care. We tried but could only do so much EOWE. All it would have taken was a little bit of extra tutoring, which she could have gotten free from her school. BM had full legal custody so there wasn't much my DH could do and BM just didn't want to. I mean, it meant 2 more years of free money for her. It was the next best thing since the state turned her down for Social Security (she tried to claim my SD is retarded-she is not).

In my case, SD purposely got pregnant (at 17), dropped out of school, and got married right after she started her junior year (at 18). She tried to keep it a secret that she got married but she let the cat out of the bag and we had CS terminated.

Do I wish she would have graduated? Yes. Am I sorry we didn't have to keep paying CS 2 extra years? Hell no.

She's now 22, divorced, no diploma, no GED, 2 kids and she's never held a job. Are we supporting her now because she doesn't have any skills or education to get a job? Nope. She lives with BM.