One of the joys of my Sundays is reading The Ethicist in the NYTimes Magazine. It’s sort of like a Dear Abby but answered by a philosophizing therapist. One of the questions in today’s column is right up the alley for CC.
The story will probably be blocked beyond the question, because I don’t have a subscription to the NYTimes online. But I posted the question below. It starts by a woman explaining she is divorced from the kids’ biological father and is now remarried to a good man whom she apparently loves. She also says enough to indicate the bio-dad isn’t contributing or even in the kids’ lives.
Initially when I read the title of the question, I thought the woman wanted a sham divorce because she wanted the university to pay for her child’s education. But the last sentence implies she wants a divorce because she’s furious with her husband for not paying $80K/yr for her child’s college.
And now I bring this to all of you to help me figure out how to feel about all of it.
One, I don’t think this woman seems like the best life partner.
But two, she’s got a point. I also can’t read the article, but if she is considering divorce just so her kid gets free tuition, maybe it’s not a bad idea.
I don’t blame the new husband for not wanting to fund $80k a year. Especially as it appears, from what little we know, that they don’t have a loving and invested relationship.
I saw this. Aside from the issue of whether the stepfather is ethically obligated to pay so much for his wife’s children for college, the practicality of it is that, were she to divorce the man, her children might not become eligible for more fin aid until as much as two years later, what with the FAFSA being based upon the tax return from essentially two years before the award year.
The wife and children had choices. The children could have gone to their state’s flagship state U, probably for about one third the cost of the Ivy, or even could have gone the community college to flagship state U route, for even less. Or perhaps they were eligible for the massive NMF scholarships at some schools. But they chose that the kids should attend expensive private schools, at great cost.
The wife even had the choice of divorcing her current spouse at least two years before the oldest began college - but this would likely have led to a tremendous drop in their standard of living. Perhaps they’d have had to move out of their good school district. Perhaps the kid would have had to drop costly ECs. The fact that the step father’s higher income probably led to a much higher standard of living for the wife and children for the previous decade or more is not factored into her reasoning.
Tough calls. But how different, really, is this from the setting where the bio parents have resources that make the child ineligible for fin aid, but refuse to pay? The reality is that her life will be changed forever (and probably much for the worse, since it sounds as if her earnings are substantially lower) if she divorces him, while at this point it’s too late to affect her children’s fin aid eligibility.
My question is was he part of the college selection process. Because we earn near this level and cannot afford high end privates. This is the youngest kid, but this wasn’t an issue until the youngest? How did the older 2 attend college. I’m wondering if she and kid made a unilateral decision on this and expects him to just choke it up. This should have been a family decision.
This is why money discussions should happen up front. On one hand I can understand this woman’s frustration - her husband’s income is being counted against financial need yet he doesn’t want to contribute - on the other hand, if they were divorced she would have to live on $60k per year instead of $210k, and would likely be working the same amount as she is now just to maintain some kind of standard of living. A student who is strong enough to be accepted to an Ivy League school would have had lot of other options - including much cheaper ones. I’m unsure why they went with an option they obviously couldn’t afford.
If they’ve been married since the kids were young, why is this conversation just coming up now? Plenty of people don’t want to pay $80K/year for college.
I like reading The Ethicist as well! I had such mixed (most negative) reactions to this letter. My takeaway from it was feeling badly for the kids because I wondered what their lives have been like in a blended family situation where it doesn’t seem like Step-Dad ever fully looked at them as his children.
Not exactly blaming Step Dad for that, more like - how do you marry someone when you already have children and you don’t spend time and effort to make sure you’ve talked to your potential partner about how your children are going to be treated and viewed in this new marriage???
I also called BS on the numbers being shared and the “we have to pay full freight at the Ivy with this income”. Nope. With the income you’ve shared, you’d probably pay something around $15 - $40k depending on which Ivy it is…unless of course you aren’t sharing accurate numbers with the Ethicist or have massive assets you aren’t claiming.
I wonder if the word Ivy and the $80K price tag are influencing the responses here.
We live in a high COL area, make more than that, and can’t afford full pay at privates, so I do feel some negative emotions towards the writer.
That said, why is the step-dad contributing an actual goose egg? There’s no active bio dad; he is it for these kids. He’s not helping at all? Why is their money so separate after all these years?
What would everyone’s reactions be if we replaced “Ivy” with “state flagship” and “80K” with “35K” - which is still very difficult to pay on an income of 60K…
I just read the letter and I am also a bit confused about the numbers. Is it possible that the stepfather is refusing to enter his information on the FAFSA and CSS and therefore they are on the hook for the whole tuition? I’ve definitely seen something similar happen with divorced parents where one parent just refuses to participate in the financial aid process at all. It is hard to imagine that happening with currently married parents unless the couple’s finances are truly kept entirely separate from each other. But that is what sprung to my mind.
All of the Ivy League schools except Princeton require the noncustodial parent finances for financial aid in this situation. If the Ivy League school is Princeton, then the letter writer getting a divorce now will substitute the biological father for the stepfather for financial aid purposes. This could be worse, in that the biological father looks more uncooperative.
I think she currently has two at Ivies, and that she’s paying about 40K/yr for each, thus 80K/yr, and that he’s not paying. That would fit with the household income - plus I don’t recall if biodad’s household income was added into the mix for eligibility for fin aid.
But yes, with a household income of 210K/yr, I can certainly see that cost of attendance should have been part of the conversation years ago.
I think you have good questions…but as far as I’m concerned these are the questions that should have been answered before mom chose to marry Step Dad. She’s not claiming he promised to treat her children like his own and has reneged. It doesn’t seem like this came up at all before or if it did - that part of the story doesn’t help support mom’s anger now.
And as someone who said, “Absolutely NO to $80k anywhere!” my reaction wouldn’t change if the numbers were $35k and a state flagship. Because the issue isn’t the absolute amount of money. The issue is the woman who chose to bring a man into her children’s life without getting answers and an agreement on how her children would be treated. A choice that has led to enormous financial impact for her kids when it comes to college.
P.S. Edited to Add - If all mom’s money is going towards paying for her kids’ college and Step Dad is still supporting the entire household…she’s still got a great deal. Just not a great dad figure for her kids.
So, he’s paying 0 for college? I know he’s carrying the family expenses so she can funnel money for college tuition, but 0? Like, I can see someone reasonably saying, “I don’t think Ivy Degree is worth $80k, but I will contribute up to $20k/30k/40k a year because college will help most people be set up for success.” And then, when the kid and Mom are star-struck with Ivy admission, come back and say, “Great, but I’m only prepared to spend $X. He’ll have to get a job/take loans.” That’s reasonable to me and I would not begrudge someone for saying there are limits to money.
But $0? And they sit and watch their spouse work overtime to pay? How do you live like that? How can they move on from that?
I also notice there is no discussion of the son(s) working. I don’t think that’s great, either.
