<p>What else is the OP supposed to do? Last year he didn’t know and now her does, (or at least suspects). He has to now act within the guidelines, otherwise he will be complicit in the fraud, (assuming there is any). Yes, the ex will have repay any fraudulently obtained financial aid, she brought that upon herself. Yes, Jane will have to transfer to a more affordable school, not the first kid who has had to do this.</p>
<p>Seems like you’ve got it all, ClassicRockerDad, unless Jane had a one-year scholarship or even a renewable one for which she didn’t meet the GPA requirements for year two. In which case a waiver wouldn’t have been necessary and Jane’s dad will look a fool and have to say “never mind” a la Roseanne Roseannadanna.</p>
<p>Or because of some information honestly provided by the mother and daughter the college acted within its discretion and waived the NCP Profile. Sometimes that happens, too.</p>
<p>
Before talking to a lawyer, he should have expressed his concerns to his daughter and his ex-wife to find out if he there was something he didn’t know or to give them time to get fix anything that needed to be fixed on a voluntary basis.</p>
<p>I always tell my kids to be sure before you take action because sometimes if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a fat guy in a duck suit selling used cars.</p>
<p>It certainly appears that the father was doing whatever he could to toss a bomb on his daughter and ex-wife.</p>
<p>It’s really gross. Reminds me of the ex I have to deal with. My daughter won’t even talk to him anymore. This is how bad it gets and she hasn’t even left for college!</p>
<p>Stacy, you have time to find an attorney dealing with finaid? and money to get advice? Btw, I think that you being delinquit in CS will be sufficient to avoid fraud by the mother. Its pretty indicative of your lack of support – or at least enough to avoid criminal charges. </p>
<p>Pea, OP is not complicit in anything if he didnt sign anything. Thats the beauty of being divorced. You are not responsible for anything any former spouse does. I don’t beleieve there are fears about complicit. I suspect that if and when Finaid contacts X and she explains how he is years behind in child support, and uber controlling (love it when he says he doesnt want his X to end up poor), they will reconsider. </p>
<p>Holly, yes it is gross. I can not imagine why anyone on this board wants to help anyone this meanspirited.</p>
<p>
Maybe she already did.</p>
<p>^Yup. On post #61, Agreed. In fact, I agree with all of the posters on this page! </p>
<p>In my post just prior to your other one, zoosermom, I also speculated that Jane might have lost her merit scholarship due to grades. It is a likely scenario.</p>
<p>I don’t know what kind of attorney you got, stacyc6, or if your attorney even intended to leave you with the impression that YOU would be in some sort of trouble for what your ex-wife might have done, but if you paid something to the school (or to your ex-wife or daughter for the school) without knowing that your ex-wife fraudulently filed her FA forms (if in fact she did that), then YOU would not be liable for fraud. It’s common sense, not just law!</p>
<p>Any payments from you under your ex-wife’s alleged guise that you weren’t providing any payments WOULD be in direct contravention of that contract. Your attorney spoke truthfully. But s/he did NOT say that YOU would be held responsible for your ex-wife’s alleged “fraud.” S/he did NOT say that YOU violated a contract. So why are you going on and on with this? You’re not in trouble. (And I don’t believe that you really think you are, or were.)</p>
<p>Since YOU would not be held responsible, AND since you DIDN’T pay anything for last year anyway (!!!), last year’s events are not really YOURS to control. Pay what you want to pay this year (1/2 tuition and fees at in-state rates at a minimum), fill out the forms that you’re required to fill out, stop harassing your ex and daughter, and then leave the rest to chance. This is NOT your issue to control.</p>
<p>I understand that you want to raise your daughter to be honest. You can do that by setting a good example and telling her how you feel about future financial aid paperwork. You can do that by having the strength of character to do what is right by her, whether that means she gets in some sort of trouble for last year’s events or not.</p>
<p>But it is not your responsibility to “check with the counselor” about what your wife did last year, or straighten things out from last year in any way (except by paying your back child-support and the 1/2 tuition and fees that you owe). All that smacks of you wanting to control and harm people. You do not come across to me as merely wanting to avoid fraud charges for yourself, nor merely wanting to raise your daughter to be honest and ethical. You come across to me as mean, manipulative, and deceitful.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>^lol!</p>
<p>I think people are being a little hard on the OP. Certainly, we can assume there’s at least one other side to the story and he is not perfect (he has admitted as much). And for sure this is an object lesson in the kinds of goofy stuff that happens when people aren’t direct with one another. However, if things went down last year the way the OP says they did (mom got a waiver more or less under false pretenses), then he’s right to be concerned. Leave aside for a minute questions about whether what the ex did was fraud or not (I’d certainly call it that); from an ethical perspective, were I in the OP’s shoes, I’d want things sorted out. Doesn’t seem to me he wants to CONTROL things; he wants to be INVOLVED. If he’s on the hook for any money, he has a right to be involved.</p>
<p>Now, the OP’s ex, his daughter and the OP need to sit down now and talk through what is ACTUALLY available to fund D’s education. Frankly, it sounds to me like they would benefit from a mediator, assuming the OP and his ex do have the daughter’s best interests in mind and assuming that they both agree that it’s best henceforth to deal forthrightly and honestly with the FA office at whatever school the D ultimately attends.</p>
<p>My daughter’s FA counselor is out today, but it appears that what will happen is that when I bring Child Support up to date and pay my half of the current college bill, the school will revise the package and the package for last year will go up.</p>
<p>And, likely, the revision from last year along with the revision from this year will make the school unaffordable and the D will have to leave this school. </p>
<p>I don’t know how Plus loans work, but I’m not sure that the ex can then take out a Plus loan for the revised package for this last school year to cover the “revised numbers.”</p>
<p>I’m starting to think that the OP has done this to make sure Jane has to leave this school so he won’t have pressure from his own kids to go to Fancy U. I’ve seen this kind of stuff happen with divorce/remarriage/more kids. The NCP with the new family doesn’t want kids from family #1 going to better schools that the children from Family #2 will get to attend.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much the OP earns, but it’s very likely that once his and his second wife’s income/assets are taken into account, the total “family contribution” will be higher than whatever the “state tution/fees” would be. </p>
<p>The sad thing is that if the D has to transfer, her choices at this point will be quite pathetic since acceptance and any reasonable FA will not likely happen.</p>
<p>
He has no idea what went down last year. If the daughter said she had a merit scholarship, it’s quite possible she did and simply may not have it this year. Before talking to a lawyer and stirring up a hornet’s nest, he should have spoken to his ex and his daughter or put his concerns in writing to them so he could find out if he’s even on the right track. Imagine how foolish and mean he will look to his daughter if she did, in fact, have a scholarship for the first year and nothing was required of him? There is no way that daughter will find out that he spoke to a lawyer without facts in front of him that she won’t think he is trying to ruin her life. That’s unforgivable. If, in fact, fraud was committed, the first thing to do, again, was to speak to the daughter and ex wife and tell them to contact the college and correct the problem voluntarily. Can you imagine being blind-sided by this because of your father?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>^But he’s NOT on the hook for any additional money. Nobody, including the ex-wife, is saying he has to pay anything more than what he’s legally obligated to pay – 1/2 of in-state tuition and fees. Nobody can force him to pay the difference. From what I can tell, nobody has asked him to do that either. All he has to do is pay what he’s supposed to pay and operate in an ethical manner for himself. It is not his job to police his ex-wife.</p>
<p>As I stated earlier, I agree that the ex was wrong if she lied. And if bad things happen after dad starts paying for college and filling out whatever forms he’s required to fill out from this point forward, then those will simply be consequences of the mom and/or D’s decisions to be unethical. (if they in fact were)</p>
<p>But there’s no need for the OP to interject himself into last year’s events. It’s mean, and controlling, and vindictive. And it will further hurt his daughter and damage the remnants of any relationship he currently has with her.</p>
<p>Abs – you say
Doesn’t seem to me he wants to CONTROL things; he wants to be INVOLVED.</p>
<p>But OP says – in post 53
My ex is very poor and for our daughter’s sake I don’t want her (the ex) getting into debt over her head, which is the only way she’s going to be able to pay for this very expensive college. I want her to be able to be a wonderful grandmother to our daughter’s kids, not just the mom who gave up everything so she could go to the fancy private school.</p>
<p>How can you not think he is over controlling of his X??</p>
<p>Well, okay, then. I get the part about the hornet’s nest. But it doesn’t really sound as if the ex is being straight with him. And she’s putting the D in the middle. I’d say there’s plenty of blame to go around. If the OP feels he is being cut out, it’s not surprising he’s being a little ham-handed in his approach. The situation just seems rather ugly from all perspectives.</p>
<p>By the way, mediation does not often work when one of the parties is unreasonable, mean, and/or vindictive. Have you never had anybody in your life who would not listen to reason no matter what, absweetmarie? With certain people, mediation is a waste of time and money. OP may be one of those people.</p>
<p>And, there are often valid reasons for cutting certain people out of our lives – particularly if they’re unreasonable, mean, and/or vindictive.</p>
<p>Hmm. I guess I’m kinda naive and did not see the signs of controlling behavior and impulses. I’m willing to admit that. (Must brush up on textual analysis!) But another way to look at it is that the OP and his ex have extremely different views of what is reasonable to sacrifice to fund a college education. That’s why I’d suggest a mediator (it works so well on that “Fairly Legal” TV show). Seems there has to be a middle ground.</p>
<p>
Her views of what is reasonable to sacrifice are none of his business. They aren’t married. She could sell a kidney, if she wanted to, and it would still be none of his business. He has a set amount of money to pay, that isn’t going to change, unless he harasses his daughter right out of college, so there is no need for him to be going through all this.</p>
<p>
Not so many, no–so, yes, I appreciate that I’m coming from a Pollyanna perspective. Maybe the OP has used up every benefit of the doubt. But could it also be that his ex is similarly unreasonable? Yes, there’s a possibility that the ex handled everything just right last year and the OP is just making things complicated by contacting the FA office. But there’s also the possibility that she didn’t do it right, that her behavior wasn’t kosher and that he really was concerned. If that’s the case, isn’t there room for sympathy for the OP, even if he’s making a hash of things now? From my perspective, it looks like neither the OP nor his ex have behaved maturely.</p>
<p>All you have is HIS perspective, which includes that he is not up to date in child support, and that he is trying to control how his X spends her money.</p>
<p>What OP fails to realize that as the NCP, the financial aid office is not going to discuss the finances or the financial aid application of his ex with him. What they will do is discuss the information of his non-custodial profile with him and tell him how much they are expecting him to pay, regardless of what his court order may say. Is he willing to do that?</p>
<p>If Sue is poor, Jane will be eligible for Pell based on custodial parent information. In addition, if she is getting merit money that is not based on need, if she has met the GPA requirement, then she will continue to get merit money.</p>
<p>Hopefully OP does realize that in the State of NY, Jane has a right to child support until her 21st birthday.</p>
<p>
That’s the likely situation. The difference is that the ex wife-s unreasonable behavior is of no consequence to either the poster or their daughter, whereas the poster’s unreasonable behavior could have spectacularly awful consequences for the daughter. Which is why he has to stop, consider and move slowly upon his suspicions. Any decent parent would go to great lengths to protect his child from disastrous consequences, even if they are legitimately deserved. It’s the fact that the pain that could be caused to his daughter if he is right doesn’t seem to concern him at all that raises so many red flags. If he had presented himself as “I think this might have happened, if so it has to be dealt with honestly, but how can I make sure it’s fixed and my daughter doesn’t have to leave school” everyone would be treating him differently.</p>