Not necessarily looking for responses from lawyers (though that’s always welcome) but from other non-custodial parents.
Here’s my situation–my two kids (13 and 17) are being encouraged by their mom to apply for sky’s-the-limit colleges. They’re really bright kids, so they’ll probably get into some fairly ritzy Ivy-league type places.
I have no formal agreement with my ex- as to how we’ll pay for college costs, but she has living parents who have built a hefty college funds for our kids, and she’s been living very comfortably the ten years we’ve been divorced. I, OTOH, have lived pretty close to the bone at times, and only within the last five years have I been able to get by on my income and get out of debt. I havent been able to build very much of a college fund.
Since I work for a university, I have had the possibility of my kids going here for just about nothing, but the university I work for isn’t an Ivy League school by any means, so my kids (and my ex-) regard it as not even an option.
Anyway, enough about me: if you’ve had a similar experience, where your ex- was much better able than you to send your kids to an expensive college, how were you able to avoid being saddled with the sizable tuition? Is there any legal mechanism for forcing you to pay for college? Is college generally treated as an entitlement, no matter what the cost and whatever the available options?
Far as I’m concerned, if my ex- wants my kids to go to one of these ultra-expensive colleges, then she can pay for it, but I’d like to know how that position stacks up in the legal system.
Non-custodial divorced parents can be forced to contribute to college costs in my state, but in that case the non-custodial parent was better off. I do not know if a non-custodial parent could be forced to take out loans.
Only the custodial parent’s income is reported on the financial statement for financial aid, so each child should live with you for the senior year of high-school.
In Texas, the duty of support from parents, custodial and non-custodial alike, ends at 18 (provided the child isn’t mentally or physically handicapped in some way). After 18, no college, no nothin’. Even if the kid was superbrilliant and went to Harvard Medical School at age 12, the custodial parent can’t put the squeeze on the non-custodial parent to pay for it. Payments are based on the non-custodial parent’s income.
This is not legal advice, I am not your lawyer, etc.
This is based on my experience and that of many of my friends: going to an expensive university but having very non-traditional families.
For the sake of logic, it seems to break down this way. The expense of college fundamentally belongs to the student. Colleges provide a certain amount of financial aid based on merit (nobody’s income or assets matter here) and need (both parents’ and the student’s income and assets matter here, in my experience, no matter what). So if you are relying on need-based financial aid, “the system” will come up with a determination of how much funding will be provided. Let’s assume that leaves a gap. The school does not compel anyone to pay. The student cannot compel either parent to contribute toward their education. There will be an assumed parental contribution communicated to the student, but if the parent doesn’t pay that money the student is on his or her own to come up with that money.
It is possible that a parent or the student could get lawyers involved to try to compel one parent or the other to pay. At this point YMMV and I have no experience or advice to give.
I will say that in my experience the “assumed parental contributions” were based on the parent’s assets and income and were in line with what a parent who wants to send a kid to college could afford to pay.
Merit based scholarships are the way to go. Tell those kids to apply like crazy!
Actually states can require ofthe children of divorced parents, to have a college contribution. Thus the legal obligation of parents end at 18, IF the parents are still married. But if the parents are divorced the state can require both parent`s to contribute to a “Fair and Resonable” to their college fund. This is due to the fact children of “broken homes” so to speak, the state has a prevailing interest in providing for their future and welfare. This interest doesn’t apply when the parents are together as it is assumed the parents will do that.
Thus this is where the problem starts. If one parent thinks you should kick in $100 a month and the other thinks $500 then it’s back to court.
The courts don’t require a college. They will set an amount. So you wouldn’t be required to pay any MORE if your kid goes to Harvard or to a community college.
One thing I found very interesting in my day…Both my parents died before I was 18 and I was on my own. So I could automatically say I was a resident of a state and get in-state tution, as they had no “home” address to get back on.
It’s a weird system, and should you get a angry judge or a bad lawyer you could get screwed, but this should really have been laid out in the divorce settlement.
Interesting answers, folks. Keep ‘em coming.
Markxxx: I agree that “this should really have been laid out in the divorce settlement.” Unfortunately, my ex- was (and is) such an entitlement queen , that her position at the time of our agreement was that she wanted me to assume financial responsibility for my kids’ GRADUATE as well as undergraduate educations (Not withstanding the fact that I had just put myself AND HER through seven years of grad school, thus exhausting my inheritance from my parents, leaving me then, as now, without resources independent of our marital assets. ) Her lawyer apparently couldn’t persuade her that her position wouldn’t hold up in court, and my lawyer was afraid that she was asking for so much, there was a chance that the judge might compromise on a higher figure than I could live with, so we opted to give her a decade or so to cool off.
BTW, I appreciate the not-really-legal advice, Pravnik, because my current lawyer (who I’ve got on a heavy retainer) is of the “Let’s just see how this motion goes” type, and isn’t giving me any substantive answers to any of the broader questions such as I’m asking here, so I have no idea what I may expect at some point down the road.