I don’t understand this. If two people remain married, then nobody is required to pay for their children’s college tuition. It would be nice if you did, but no law would require it.
But, since you divorce, or never marry you child’s other parent, now under penalty of law, the kid gets a free paid college education by the parents??
The courts reasoning about allowing child support after 18 when the kid is an adult is something like this
Marriage is the foundation of society. This is why society gives benefits to married people for example taxes and this is why kids are a tax deduction. Since children are the future of a nation and it’s a basic human right to reproduce, courts have held marriage is the cement that will allow these children to prosper.
The courts say when the foundation of society, marriage, is disrupted, it is the children that will be harmed, because said unit is not functioning. Because of this “harm” (and I only use that term in a loose sense) of divorce, courts have ruled requiring divorced parents to pay for a child’s college education is OK because a college educated child of divorce will help make this child of divorce a better citizen.
Again these rulings go way back before divorce was that common among average people. Remember divorce was at one time for movie stars and rich people.
So that’s how the courts reasoned -> Disrupted family unit can produce bad kids and college will help overcome this stigma and disruption
That is the “general” idea behind it you can Google for specific rulings
As a divorced guy with two daughters in expensive private colleges, I can tell you that New York State indeed requires tuition of me–despite the fact that I am employed by a private university offering me free tuition for my children, my daughters were free to apply exclusively to other colleges, all charging upwards of 40 grand per year, and to decline to apply to mine, which as I say was free for them. (We do charge around $32,000 to non-faculty.)
Here in Georgia my lawyer told me that there was no requirement for me to pay anything towards college as part of the divorce settlement. However, during the settlement we did set aside funds for college costs before then dividing the remainder of our assets (and my ex-wife constantly bitches about this because she thinks she should have got half of everything and then I pay for all college costs…)
Actually most state courts either apply a statute that allows some sort of college support, or say there isn’t such a statute and refuse to award college support. Here is a quote from a New Jersey opinion, which explains it’s logic in permitting such awards. The court doesn’t say anything like you claim.
Earlier courts treated college education as a necessary. *See, e.g., * Esteb v. Esteb, 138 Wash. 174; 244 P. 264; 1926 Wash. LEXIS 997; 47 A.L.R. 110 (1926) and see, Gnirk v. Gnirk, 134 N.H. 199; 589 A.2d 1008; 1991 N.H. LEXIS 42 (1991) (citing necessity cases in support of conclusion that New Hampshire courts have discretion to award college support).
Some jurisdictions may also require that each ex-spouse maintain a life insurance policy on the other so that the loss of support won’t be an issue if one or both parents dies. The death benefit takes into account the annual earnings multiplied by the number of years until the youngest child turns 18. For example, someone with an eight-year-old and a six-year-old who earns $50,000 per year would end up with a 15-year term policy of $600,000. The specifics are negotiated as part of the final settlement and written into the decree.
If this is such a good idea, then why not require it of intact families? The same reasoning that Gfactor cited could also be applied to intact families.
Why can’t a court order my wife and I to pay for our daughter’s college education when she turns 18 under this reasoning?
Many divorce decrees prohibit smoking in a home or a vehicle where a child is present. That’s also a laudable goal, but one that would be wholly overstepping judicial authority in an intact home.
It seems to me that this is the incremental government intrusion with raising children. We will leave most people alone to not provoke outrage until such time as the need arises to close the “loophole”.
What happens if the child is getting "Cs"and "D"s, in college, and making no effort to learn? Is it fair to keep the non-custodial parent paying, so that the “child” can continue the ride on the gravy train?
This is what galls me. Why are people forced into doing this just because a divorce took place? College is still available, it’s not like it becomes out of reach. That’s what loans are for and many people I know had to pay back these loans. It’s totally ridiculous crap.