Yes, you read that correctly. My ex wife of 15 years, who is the custodial parent, refuses to fill out both the fafsa and CSS which are required by her university before they will consider any aid. (I am legally responsible for paying for the school).
I have heard every excuse from her not having tax returns handy, we don’t qualify, there’s no money left, you fill it out for me, etc. The university is telling me they have funds to give out, but time is running out. They even supplied me with a letter to help explain to her mom that the custodial parent has to initiate the CSS as well as fill out the fafsa. I told my daughter about this, but she just repeats the same things her mom does and refuses to get involved.
What are my options here? Can I go to court and have her forced to fill out the forms?
Looks like she wants to force you to pay more than you should have to out of spite. You may have to read your divorce settlement and consult a lawyer on your options.
The court can’t force her to fill it out, but can relieve you of your obligation to pay for college. You can file for a hearing and show the court the documentation from the college that your ex is not completing the paperwork because you have to pay. I think most courts would be pretty sympathetic. Does your support obligation require you to pay 100% of any costs, any school, any time?
If it were my child, she’d be taking a gap year. It’s actually your daughter’s responsibility to complete the FAFSA, the parent is responsible for the parent information (most of us consider this a joke as most students can’t fill out half the FAFSA without parent’s help).
Wow… this is an ugly twist. I’d have your lawyer shoot a letter off to your ex saying that they must fill out the aid paperwork, or your child will be required to take a gap year and try again next year.
Although… I am going to say that most CSS schools require both parents to report assets and income, and if you have been court ordered to pay, I am guessing that you possibly have considerable assets and income? Any new spouse info comes into the equation as well. Are you sure that you are going to get aid when both party’s information is taken into account anyway? I get that for a FAFSA only school it makes sense that she should do it. What do the net price calculators on each school website show when you try it with just your information?
Do you expect your D to take out her federal loans? Or do work study? Those are things that require FAFSA to be filled out.
It is definitely spite work. This is a divorce that happened over 15 years ago and at that time, I had a extremely different financial profile. My income look good last year but a lot was eaten away by back taxes owed and losses on a home sale. My business has gone south, and I am working to get it back on its feet. I am relatively working for no income at this point and cannot say when that will turn around. I was instructed by the school that they need CSS/Fafsa to even have a conversation with me.
My ex does has not work since the divorce and I would venture to guess she has more available assets than I do at this point. I think she might get something from fafsa. She is claiming she needs to go back to work to get by.
Even if we don’t get anything, I don’t think it is asking too much for a few hours of time to fill these forms out. I absolutely hate going the legal route, as her litigious nature over every small detail has cost me a ton of money. But I don’t see any other options at this point.
It is also possible that she is refusing to fill those forms because she may fear that her financial information may “leak” to you. If your relationship with her is still mainly through lawyers, that could be an additional motivation for her to refuse to fill those forms.
Your daughter needs to get the 2015 taxes from her mom, and yoir daughter needs to file the FAFSA, and the Profile. She will also need information about any assets her mom holds.
Has anyone told the daughter and former wife that the child cannot go to college until this is completed?
And…you are asking this question NOW…on May 10? The deadlines for institutional need based aid at most colleges have LONG passed.
It is very possible that the only aid your daughter would get at this point…Direct Loan of $5500, and any portion of the Pell Grant for which she is eligible.
Did you pay child or spousal support in 2015 because both of those are included on the FAFSA and Profile. How much?
She should get involved, since this is her education! What are her plans if none of this works out? What is the university? Can she work and go part-time? Take a gap year?
It’s been 15 years since you were ordered to pay for college, at a time when you had a much higher income. Any chance that you can get that order changed based on your current “lesser” circumstances?
Since you’re having business issues, even if your child got some aid, how much could you actually pay this year? How much does the school cost that your DD intends to attend?
Seems crazy to order someone to pay for college when it’s unknown what their financial picture will be 15 years later, without some sort of “out” clause if income or health dives. Heck, what if the CP had become a millionaire during that 15 years? Would she still not have to pay? Weird divorce order.
If you are currently paying CS, seek an order to have it revisited. That will force the financial issue. Perhaps then you will drop it if she will do her part in filling out forms.
Unless she is right that you will not get aid. My ex kept bugging me to do the fafsa and we are multiples over any reasonable aid limit…because “you never know”…no, I know.
What does your divorce order actually say? Are you obligated to pay the full COA for any college your daughter may choose to attend? If there are any limitations, you could point those out so that the ex and your daughter realize there is a shortfall that might be met by aid. How much can you afford to pay anyway? Would the divorce order obligate you to borrow to pay the COA?
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If you are currently paying CS, seek an order to have it revisited. That will force the financial issue. Perhaps then you will drop it if she will do her part in filling out forms.
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This is the best advice. Assuming that senior year hasn’t ended or CS hasn’t finished, contact your atty today to get this all revisited…at a minimum there should be some sort of “out” for income drop, or CP not filing for aid, etc.
I don’t know that a court would be willing to order her to fill out the forms though they could, certainly, require her to produce her financial records. I do, however, think that you can file a petition to limit how much your financial obligation toward paying for college is. I think the court would be sympathetic to the petition if you show that you have done due diligence to save/set aside funds, sufficient for say a local community college. Or maybe enough to cover tuition but not room and board.
Even if the original agreement was to pay the full COA for the school of your daughter’s choice, the court would probably consider your petition if the financial circumstances have changed, not just in your status but also school costs. It was pretty common to have a vague generic line about “pay for college” in custody agreements 15 years ago (I know because I have one, too) because it was financially plausible then.
Given the realities of what your contribution would cover, your ex and your daughter may be motivated to choose to file the paperwork so that she can attend the school of her choice.
I’d opt for a heart to heart with the D before I spent more money on a lawyer.
She may be refusing to “get involved” but it’s likely because she has no clue about the magnitude of the dollars you are talking about.
So here’s the script- “honey, I love you. I want you to go to college and get a great education. Like everyone else in the world, your mom and I have financial limitations on what we can spend. Unless your mom complies with your university’s need for her financial information, you will not be getting any aid. And I don’t have the funds to pay for college by myself. That’s reality. You have two choices here- continue on the path you are on, which means that in August I will get a bill for your tuition which I cannot pay… and even with a court order, a judge can’t get money from me which I don’t have. Or- you can sit down with your mom and explain that she needs to cooperate with your college in order for us to make college a reality for you. Your choice. My love for you is infinite but my financial resources are not”.
See what happens. Agree that you’ve got a solid claim for a modified court order… but you need to get your D to deal with reality, not pretend that in August you are getting a bill and writing the check just to get her mom off your back.
On the one hand the tough cookie that I tend to be would say that she’s going to be flipping burgers this fall since she’s not going to bat for her own future, but on the other hand the mom part of me realizes that this kid is stuck in an AWFUL situation with her parents using her as a tool to go to war over, and she may feel totally paralyzed about what to do.
I’d tell the kid not to worry, that you’re going to do your best to get her to school, leave her out of the discussion, and go to war on the miserable excuse for a mom immediately.
Seems like this will be just another battle in an ongoing war. Imagine if all of the lawyer fees paid by both ex-spouses over the years had been put in a fund for the daughter’s college money instead…
I agree that this situation may need to be handled in a variety of ways. Is the college selected affordable with institutional aid but a strain w/o ? I would figure a cost effective way to utilize the courts in your situation.
Perhaps a gap year is needed - this could be the motivation to get the paperwork in.
If you see your DD, meet with her and lay out the importance of the FASFA and CSS for her to begin school in the fall.
No way should you be manipulated by your ex to pay more than what should be paid with proper paperwork in order and the institutional aid applied. Your DD has got to realize that you are trying to be reasonable but you are needing to make some choices down a path you prefer not to go down, simply because this paperwork is so important.
It seem your ex is putting her spiteful feelings above her DD on many levels. Shame on her.
So is mom actually the custodial parent for FAFSA purposes, meaning your daughter lived with her mom more in the past year? FAFSA wants to know which parent the child lived with more in the 365 days immediately preceding the filing of FAFSA.
With all due respect, I disagree with the above. There have been a number of parents posting on this forum who did not even think of college costs when they divorced. This family did. The reality is the parents could have been putting money into a 529 when the going was good for future college expenses. I applaud this parent for even thinking about college costs when the divorce was taking place. So many don’t!
Lots of issues here:
We don't know how much the custodial parent is obligated to pay. Is it a %age of the costs..or a specific dollar amount?
We don't know how much the non-custodial parent is obligated to pay. Is it a %age or a specific dollar amount?
I say these things because in my state, for example, divorce decrees can set the bar at half the cost of an instate public university…and that is it. Of course, specific divorce decrees can have different settlements, but this is what our state sets as the bar.
In addition, colleges really don’t give two hoots about divorce decrees when calculating need based aid.
We don't know when the non-custodial parent income took a nosedive...or why.
We don't know about spousal or child support paid.
We don't know anything about how this divorce decree was set up.
We don't know the cost of the college...there is a big difference between Yale full pay at $70,000 a year, and the local community college at full pay probably less than $10,000.
All we know is that the custodial parent won’t do the FAFSA or Profile.
For all we know, the custodial parent has remarried…we don’t know that either.
But I’ll stand by my first response. If the kid can’t go to college wothout the $5500 Dorect Loan, then the FAFSA needs to be completed. At this point…very late in the game…there might not be any additional aid even available. Deadlines for institutional aid have passed…a long while ago. Oh…and the kid would get any option of the Pell Grant if entitled.