In the letter, it is clear that the children are working and providing their own money for living expenses.
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Clearly the conversations and planning should have happened sooner though when I read CC, many posters seem to over-estimate how well families understand the financial aid process. For me the key part of the article is that the stepfather seems unwilling to pay any tuition for kids who he has supposedly been parenting for 10+ years. I know next to nothing about step-parenting, but I have always assumed that when you marry someone with small children, you are agreeing to be a full parent in the family. This does not sit right with me:
However, the university insists that the stepfather’s income is counted in the annual income, and my husband makes $150,000. But he refuses to pay any of the tuition or related costs (which come to $80,000 a year); he says it’s my responsibility. So now I’m working 12-to-15-hour days to try to pay for tuition. The children receive some scholarship money, but you can imagine how infuriated I am. Is this grounds for divorce?
Why would someone who makes 150K want their spouse to be solely responsible for the tuition of the family’s children? They are a family. He is as responsible for caring for the children as she is. I wouldn’t want to be married to someone who would rather watch me work 15 hour days than help with the cost. I also get that the stepfather might be against the idea of the children attending colleges with such high price tags. So yes, an 80K per year school is probably a poor choice. But surely there is a compromise in there. If he is married to this women and they are a family then he should be contributing something to their tuition even if it is not as much as she thinks.
Or if his stance is that all kids should earn their way through their degrees with no help from parents then that strikes me as having a really different set of values than the mom holds, and I really do think it is unfortunate that this difference in expectations/values didn’t come out sooner. Because yeah, I would also be furious if my spouse (biological parent or stepparent) put all the burden of tuition payments on me alone. I would rather be single.
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No mention is made of the husband’s prior relationships, if any. If he had kids from a previous relationship then this might be entirely justifiable. Likewise we don’t know how entangled this couple’s finances are. For example, is their house owned jointly or just by the husband? How are the bills divided? There could easily have been a tacit (mis)understanding when they got married. Good reason for a prenup in these circumstances.
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"At the Ivy League university that one of my children attends, "
If I read this right then it’s one kid in an Ivy League with a price tag of 80K. No idea if he IS paying (or paid) already for the other two kids for their college tuition.
Quick assessment: Step dad said “Not paying the price tag for one kid–we have bills, housing, retirement. There are cheaper, more responsible ways to get an education.”
Mom has stars in her eyes about ivy league school and thinks divorcing him will have the school pay instead.
Nothing like throwing spouse under the bus to get your way. Instead of saying stepdad might have a good point the answer weighs heavily on the “he doesn’t support you” (even if you insist on jumping off a perfectly good bridge into shallow waters). This advice is written by someone without a clue in my opinion.
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I felt the same about the advice given.
I view this the same as if the wife contemplates divorce because the husband won’t buy her the $100K automobile she wants.
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$320k automobile
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Didn’t read all the responses but financing an education should be discussed, as we know, up front - and clearly it wasn’t.
Would he leave all his assets if he passed to her kids if he had his own?
He may not feel responsible and I suppose this is the difficulty of this type of marriage…so many issues.
If my son ever was single and was interested in someone but he told me she had children…not grown kids…my advice would be to run, run, and run as fast as you can.
Because it just seems like a difficult situation to navigate.
I’m sure it could be and I’m a bit over the top but you’re not just marrying a person but rather a family of people - and you’re not the father and I can just see challenges galore…
But in this case, they didn’t follow the rule of finances first - and this could have been avoided.
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Many schools do not expect a stepparent to contribute to college costs what they would normally expect married bio-parents to contribute. What colleges do expect is that a stepparent is contributing to the family’s living expenses, thereby increasing the share that the bio-parent can pay for college. What we don’t know is how this works in each school’s FA formula. Can you share some insights @kelsmom?
I agree the couple should have talked about this a long time ago (ideally before getting married). Having a prenup wouldn’t have changed anything (aside from making them have talked about it), because colleges could care the least what a prenup says about funding college (or divorce decree for that matter).
Personally, I don’t think stepdad has an ethical responsibility to fund college, especially as there were certainly less costly options…and who knows what may have transpired if the kids made a less expensive choice. Maybe stepdad would have then contributed if he felt he had a say in the choice or maybe he has bio kids, etc etc (speculating of course).
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Not true. The marital status is as of the filing date. If divorced, only the parent would report.
I’m out of free NY Times articles for the month, so couldn’t read the whole thing. But some questions come to mind:
- Why would the mom assume that the step-dad would be willing to fund her kids’ college education? That’s kind of asking a lot.
- Have they been a ‘married filing jointly’ household for all this time? Or filed separately?
- What about the kids’ biological father? How come he isn’t being asked to contribute?
- Maybe the step-dad has children of his own from a previous relationship.
- there’s not enough info to make a decision on who to agree with on this argument
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@thumper1 is correct - it doesn’t matter if the mom was married in that base year. The ex’s financial information is removed if they have since gotten divorced. And if they weren’t married in the base year, the step parent income has to be reported.
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The step parent income is included in the federal aid formula just like a biological parent’s would be. I suppose a private school might choose to treat it differently for awarding their own aid, but I am not aware of any that do that.
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This seems to be an example of how FAFSA hasn’t really evolved to reflect many common situations. Probably when FAFSA started most children lived with both biological (or adopted) parents and that’s not the family situation of many.
The FAFSA should consider only the incomes of the child’s 2 parents to determine aid. My divorce decree says ex will pay for college because he owns the 529 plans. If the tuition exceeds what he and I have contributed to the 529 or his ability to pay, should his new wife with her own 3 kids be expected to pay for her step kids? That seems tremendously unfair. If kids need financial aid it should come down to what the biological parents earn without regard to step parent income. I’m not remarried and won’t ever be, but I would expect that if the children need aid, that my ex and I would provide that without involving step parents. If I ever were to remarry, I would make sure that my prenup explicitly states that my income or assets would be excluded from any FAFSA. I would probably also be sure to file married but filing separately to avoid as much confusion as possible
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Back to the subject line - should you divorce your husband ?
No. But he should divorce you for being a gold digging, user !!
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The parental income requirements are very carefully considered, and they are as they are because Congress feels that is appropriate. So you know who to talk to, should you want answers on that one.
As far as ethics go, are those still a thing? I mean, they are for me … but I am increasingly aware that I am not necessarily in the majority. Especially those pesky situational ethics.
Haven’t read the story but the step-dad has probably contributed a great deal towards basic household expenses. Don’t think he should be on the hook for a designer-priced school. Don’t know how the school was accepted when step-dad didn’t want to pay for it (well within his rights - he’s already supported these kids for years, most likely).
The question sounds like, to me: “I ignored my spouse’s wishes and let my kid accept an expensive school option because IT’S AN IVY EDUCATION and my husband will just have to come around to our way of thinking!” Doesn’t sound like must respect for the husband’s financial boundaries. The fact that she’s asking about a divorce is just, wow.
Kind of think @tsbna44’s message is short but to the point.
And to prioritize your kid’s school choice over your current spouse’s position - no matter how harsh it’s perceived - is an emotional deal-breaker. How do you recover from that? I wonder if the kid knows that this choice is straining the marriage. What a mess all around.
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The ethics here aren’t whether or not he should count towards their EFC. He’s been a custodial parent for years. That’s a settled question.
From my point of view, the question is whether or not it’s ethical to get a divorce so you qualify for more aid. I vote no.
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Step-dad is a tool and d*ck for not contributing. He has been the parent of these kids for a decade.
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Interesting 
This can have many factors, one I can think of is maybe the husband does not have the proper income to pay off her spouse’s tuition or could be he piled up a lot of money in the bank and does not want to chip in, the spouse is supposed to look out for each other.
Before starting community college, I use to work 40 hours a week nonstop and managed to pay my wife’s dental school tuition, not a huge fan of having a lifetime debt balance.