<p>It's my understanding that schools require financial information from both parents (and stepparents) in cases of divorce. My ex is refusing to supply any financial information. I've retained an attorney and now my ex claims they're on the verge of bankruptcy. Do my, our, kids have much of a chance of getting financial aid? Ex's income is in excess of $500K per year but, as I indicated, claims to be on the brink of financial ruin, e.g. has let multi-million dollar home go into foreclosure, run up substantial credit card debt, etc. etc.</p>
<p>Are you the custodial parent? If so, most public unversities require only the custodial parents’ financial information. My D has excellent stats but did not apply to some top schools since they required her dad’s financial info and we knew that it would knock her chances for any need-based aid. Her dad won’t help much with college costs either so she chose the schools that did not ask for her dad’s info. There is a list of schools on collegeboard.com that tells you which schools require the noncustodial parents’ info. Also, you can always send a letter explaining the situation. It may not help, but it can’t hurt. </p>
<p>I feel your pain. It kills me that my D couldn’t apply to some of the best schools because we knew that her dad would not help with the costs and the schools would look at his financial info. She actually received a recruiting letter from Harvard and when I told my ex, his response was “It costs too much.” Needless to say, she didn’t apply there or any other Ivy for that matter. </p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Depends on whether it’s a FAFSA only school or a CSS + FAFSA school. FAFSA is the custodial parent only (most of the publics and some of the privates.) A few of the publics and some of the privates use FAFSA and their own form and the rest use FAFSA and CSS. Read the finaid websites for the colleges being contemplated to determine what they will need. If you’ve retained a lawyer, then I would make sure the lawyer knows which colleges are in play.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>True…</p>
<p>Since it doesn’t look like your ex will be contributing towards your children’s education (unless it was in the divorce decree), your children’s college options may be limited to publics or other schools that do not require NCP info. Unfortunately, those are often the schools that don’t give the best aid.</p>
<p>However, if your kids have strong grades and test scores, they may get great merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Is your eldest child a junior? What are his/her stats? (GPA and test scores).</p>
<p>There are only 300 or so schools that require the Profile and of those schools not all require the non-custodial parent form. Some schools that don’t use the Profile also use a school form and sometimes THAT also asks for non-custodial parent info.</p>
<p>What you need to find are schools that do not require the non-custodial parent information. You need to check each Profile school that your child is interested in…some do NOT require it…some do.</p>
<p>FAFSA only schools do not use non-custodial parent info (FAFSA ONLY…not schools that have a form of their own which request non-custodial parent info) as mentioned above. There are many private universities out there that use only the FAFSA to disperse financial aid. However, I will say…most schools with the very generous financial aid policies and deep pockets of money for students DO require this, in my experience.</p>
<p>If you end up in litigation with your child’s non-custodial parent over this issue, he will have to show documentation of his poverty. </p>
<p>Does your state require that ex spouses pay for a portion of college costs? Some, I understand, might. Also, anything in your divorce decree that addressed this issue?</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Very true!</p>
<p>Need2no…be sure that each of your children applies to at least 2 financial safety schools. These are schools that you know that they can afford to go to. There are many schools that give merit scholarships, so look into some of those, too.</p>
<p>So many kids only apply to schools that require generous aid packages, and when their aid is insufficient, they have little or no choices left.</p>
<p>BTW, I’ve found it interesting the threads that discuss divorce degrees that include college. I don’t have a single friend, male or female, that had any obligation financially after 18. Fortunately we don’t have many friends that had ugly divorces. I’m much more aware now that it can even be done (extend obligations through college) and fortunately I don’t “need” to know this for myself but if I have any younger friends that end up getting divorced I would definitely bring that up in conversation.</p>
<p>My divorce agreement has provisions for both child support and sharing of educational costs (with no limitations on the cost of the college or university), not just until the age of 18 or through college, but until J. finishes his education or reaches the age of 24 (whichever comes first). I had thought that this kind of provision was reasonably common these days. In our case, making sure that J.'s education was provided for was just about the only thing we didn’t fight about. Because it was a rather ugly divorce other than with respect to our son, although we get along better now.</p>
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DonnaL, only by agreement in my state (and I believe many others). There is no court-ordered support beyond age 18 (or graduation from high-school, whichever is later). It becomes a negotiating tool, sometimes wielded as a club.</p>
<p>Just an FYI…even in married families…there is NO obligation for parents to pay for their kids to go to college. Yes…this is an expectation of the colleges, but there is no law anywhere that I know of that obligates any parent to pay these bills.</p>
<p>Go and read the financial aid board in this forum and you will read about plenty of kids of married parents…where the parents will NOT pay their EFC or any other college costs.</p>
<p>Profile schools? Ex has submitted financial data but I suspect it is far from accurate.</p>
<p>Don’t rule out profile schools just because the non-custodian parent won’t co-operate. I’ve friends who are divorced and whose ex-spouses won’t pay who have been able to get colleges to waive the other parent’s share. </p>
<p>The colleges won’t just take your word for it. If, however, you’ve got a long history of unpaid child support and lots of proof that you tried to collect, colleges may waive the contribution.</p>
<p>We are in a similar situation unhelpful, non-contributing to college ex, and I didnt realize which schools required that information since I knew the FAFSA wouldnt. I wasnt familiar with which schools used the CSS Profile until after we applied and now we have about 5 schools we know even if she gets in we wont be able to afford it. Fortunately D is happy just to know if theyd have her and doesnt have her heart set on them but we would have dropped those and looked more at other financial safeties if we truly knew the picture. I now know for my younger 2 but do regret I didnt know enough this time around.</p>
<p>Here is the listing of profile schools:
<a href=“https://profileonline.collegeboard.com/prf/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet.srv[/url]”>https://profileonline.collegeboard.com/prf/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet.srv</a></p>
<p>Seriously you can obtain non-custiodial parent waivers for the CSS Profile. Don’t waste your money on a lawyer. If you can detail the problems out, and have a non-partisan third party (teacher, counselor, pastor, etc) talk about the problems you can get the other parent waived.</p>
<p>I’d like to add that my parents had a provision, but my dad refuses to pay what the CSS and my school says he can pay, because he’s just paying to the provision. If they say he’s got $xxx and he’s only paying $x, you have to make up the money somehow (because most schools combine the parental EFC)</p>
<p>You can ASK for a non-custodial parent waiver…but there is no guarantee you will GET one. If the ONLY reason is that the parent refuses to pay…this will likely not fly. Many parents refuse to pay for college (married or not) and waivers are not granted on the finaid applications. Most schools that require the NCP form have the expectation that IF a parent can contribute, they will. If you are in contact with this ex spouse, have received any kind of child support or alimony, or whatever from him, your likelihood of a waiver decreases.</p>
<p>But TRY. You will need to contact each school about this…some will work with you and others simply will not.</p>
<p>Expected family contribution is based largely on INCOME…and an income annually of 1/2 million dollars should be able to support a contribution for college. There is no provision for consumer DEBT on the Profile, but you could list bankruptcy under the “other” section, I suppose. The bottom line is…if he had no income and now has no assets, his kid might actually GET some institutional aid because of reduced income. If, on the other hand, he and his current wife had income i 2009 and assets…well…that’s another story.</p>
<p>It does seem that the kids get caught in the crosshairs.</p>
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<p>I was under the impression that the man was in so much debt he couldn’t pay. Or that he’s lying and saying he has that debt–</p>
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<p>Ultimately it looks like he’s either </p>
<ul>
<li>in debt and can’t pay</li>
<li>a liar and fraud and refuses to pay</li>
</ul>
<p>You can attempt waivers for either (depending on how things go down) They may not get them, but if they don’t it doesn’t matter whether he wants to pay anything. The EFC will look the same.</p>
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<p>No kidding.</p>
<p>I have an unpopular (amongst some) opinion on this subject. I believe the non-custodian parent obligation should by statute end at HS grad. Anything further should be voluntary. Women initiate 75% of divorces and get custody 90% of the time. It’s an attractive deal. They are free to move the children far away from their fathers and to engage in other means of parental disaffection. All while reviving government mandated support payments from the father. Under the current paradigm a child has no impetus to maintain good relations with the non-custodial parent. I think there should be.</p>
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<p>Women also push 100% of children out their birth canals. </p>
<p>HMMMMM…</p>
<p>(And of course, let’s not at all consider why women would file divorce. Stuff like: Physical violence is estimated to occur in 4 to 6 million intimate relationships each year in the United States. Nearly one in every three adult women experiences at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood. Approximately four million American women experience a serious assault by an intimate partner during a 12-month period." It is estimated that 2 million to 4 million US women are assaulted by a domestic partner every year. Twelve million women (25% of the female population) will be abused in their lifetime. [url=<a href=“http://www.findcounseling.com/journal/domestic-violence/domestic-violence-statistics.html]Source[/url”>http://www.findcounseling.com/journal/domestic-violence/domestic-violence-statistics.html]Source[/url</a>] No matter what the rate of violence or who initiates the violence, women are 7 to 10 times more likely to be injured in acts of intimate violence than are men. (Bureau of Justice Statistics) 53% of male abusers beat their childern. Yeah. That’s only one potential reason why women file for divorce, out of everything from: I don’t love you, I don’t want to get beat anymore. Don’t act like every woman filing for divorce is doing the wrong thing.)</p>
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<p>Oh, I had no idea my dad had a college confidential account. </p>
<p><em>rolls eyes</em> </p>
<p>Surprise! Many parents would drop their kids like hot potatos if they could, post-divorce. As an adult, they need to own up to the fact that they created a child, and there is a life-time responsibility that comes with that. </p>
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<p>Both men and women can request/require visiting rights from their children, or demand that the other parent stay in one state/city if possible. My dad did, which is why my mother can’t move anywhere. </p>
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<p>Why would a child maintain good relations with a non-custodial parent if they have the ability to help their child but refuse to help out/or lie a la the OP’s situation?</p>