There seems to be a lot of negative assumptions about single parents and second marriages in this long thread. Respectfully, we all have different life experiences. Instead of making overly broad generalizations about groups of people, respecting ALL parents whether they be single, married or step would go a long way.
And side note–my kids are grateful that their step-dad didn’t listen to your advice.
I feel exactly the opposite. If my son were to meet someone with children, I would urge him to include those children as part of the family and not run away.
No, the colleges think of stepparents as an ATM.
Granted, we must assume that the 80k COA payments refer to both kids, we don’t know whether the non-Ivy offers need based aid and the mother herself has said that the kids receive some scholarships.
However, the tuition bill the colleges have come up with after evaluating the finances of this woman with two kids in college amount to 20k more a year than she makes. She CANNOT pay this amount. Not even of she lived frugally, not even if she lived entirely at her husbands expense. It’s not like a donut hole family who could pay in theory - the money isn’t there. She has NO legal right to her husbands money to use for her kids. All she has is the the right to have him contribute to household expenses. Even If he paid for everything else, she’d still be 20k in the red, without having spent a single dime on herself.
What is she supposed to do, go on her knees and beg? They’re Not His Children.
No, you do not marry a spouse’s children. You may have no say whatsoever in their education or parenting beyond basically being around day to day, and even if life has worked out so that you do end up parenting your step kids in a meaningful way, you are not required to support them financially.
I recover cross border child support for a living. I’ve never heard of a stepparent having to pay child support in the US. Doesn’t happen. Why would he have to pay college costs? Why is the mother expected to somehow achieve that? To endanger her marriage to what amounts to a drop in the ocean for an Ivy?
That’s what’s unethical.
Thank you Thumper for that refreshing non-judgy comment.
As always, the mother is free to send her kid to a school she can afford. Schools aren’t expecting her to pay what they calculate her family can pay … they are simply letting her know what they will or will not provide in financial aid. We all have to make choices based on our individual situations, and thankfully, there are plenty of choices out there.
Obviously some peope get attached and that’s fine.
And there are many single parents - 30s, 40s - I get it.
But if these kind of situations can be avoided up front - especially if say you are working and the other parent isn’t and brings kids into the situation - not saying it wouldn’t happen, but if one can somehow avoid the attachment up front - yes, their lives would be easier.
And yes, they might be without family that they now love.
Every situation is different though. While I’m not in it (other than seeing it through my sister and people at work), I imagine a lot has to do with the age of kids and the relationship with the previous spouse. If the previous husband or wife is difficult financially and emotionally (crappy parent), why take that on ??
But that’s how I feel - others don’t need to.
Well, I don’t have any statistics to prove or disprove this, but my anecdata says most men–and women–who remarry agree with you, since most of them do have children from previous marriages.
Well, parents aren’t required to pay college costs either. You can kick your kids out of the house the day they turn 18 and never give them another penny for anything (and I have met parents who have.) And colleges are not required to give away their product for free or at a discount. Colleges can set their own rules, and they have decided that if Johnny or Susie grew up in a $210K/yr household that they will charge the same amount whether that family is a traditional family or a stepparent-containing family.
We are a little off topic here…but I will add…
None of us has a crystal ball. Any one of our own kids could marry and have kids…and then get divorced. I know that my wish would be that my divorced parent kid (if that were to happen) would find someone to share their life (with their kids) with a wonderful new significant other.
And things can change from the time the new family (parent, stepparent, kids) is formed and when the kids go to college too. Family is making $210 now, but were they 10 years ago when they married? Was bio parent paying child support and was that used for a college fund or was it needed to buy mac and cheese?
The family needed to make a college decision based on the financial situation at age 18 and it appears this mother didn’t do that. The rest of us do that. Many know that child support payments will stop at 18, know that they will be retiring, know that for some reason or another finances will change right when college starts, and that has to be considered when applying for college. Even if the FAFSA or CSS says you can pay $X doesn’t mean you can.
My nephews are 17 and will be going to college next fall. Parents are divorced. My brother is on SS and boys collect a benefit bu that ends when they turn 18. All that has to be considered when they calculate where they can afford to go to college.
She’d still have to pay room and board. Would she be able to afford the approx. $15k/year on a $60k salary?
And her own living expenses?
No, if she is really making 60K, she would likely not have any tuition or room or board costs at all (or travel or books or anything else). On that salary with typical assets, financial aid at an Ivy League school would likely cover the whole cost of attendance and the child likely would not have any loans just work-study.
Absolutely. Raising 3 kids as a divorced parent on 60K with no real child support from the ex-spouse would be very challenging even if (best-case scenario), she got their house in the divorce settlement. Though I suppose it would be less challenging now that all of her children are college aged and above.
Aside from the end spectrums (lots of money, little money) ultimately these schools are corporations with financial formulas that don’t care about the widely-varied contemporary middle class of America. Their final financial offers are just that. A business proposition.
These school corporations ultimately don’t care about what families do when they take the bait of paying an excess of their family’s financial assets to attend. If they did, packages would not be what they are.
For those families that end up in the OP’s situation (tuition costs now colliding with family harmony) or worse (resorting to illicit behavior to fund their college debts), it’s awful. No education cost is worth blowing up your family relationships or enduring personal degradation.
"I recover cross border child support for a living. I’ve never heard of a stepparent having to pay child support in the US. Doesn’t happen. Why would he have to pay college costs? Why is the mother expected to somehow achieve that? To endanger her marriage to what amounts to a drop in the ocean for an Ivy?
That’s what’s unethical."
Unethical? Wow. Colleges cannot garnish someone’s wages. Colleges don’t show up in the middle of the night and repossess your car. Colleges don’t hang out in your kitchen while you are unpacking your groceries and decide “You can buy lentils and beans but not a Carvel cake”.
Colleges set a level of the subsidy they are prepared to offer a family- and the family reserves the right to say “no thanks, can’t afford it”. Period.
How is this unethical? Anyone who is prepared to endanger their marriage over college costs clearly has other issues going on beside the financial aid formulae. And it is not the role of a college financial aid office to solve the myriad issues that come with a second marriage. Here’s the price tag-- take it or leave it.
There are tens of thousands of intact families who decide that they aren’t going to pay whatever it is that a particular college will cost. And that’s their prerogative. Are you prepared to claim it’s unethical for a college to assume that a family with a primary residence, a beach house, and a ski chalet can either sell the chalet, take out a mortgage on the property, or liquidate their brokerage account? And yet we have parents on CC every year complaining that the only way they can afford College A is by selling, mortgaging, or liquidating (“but I was planning to retire with the money in that account”-- a non-retirement asset).
Nope, not unethical. College won’t come to the bank and vacuum the money out of the account. You can’t afford it? Go somewhere else. Attending Dartmouth or wherever is not an entitlement program.
Perhaps the point they’re making is: for the middle class, the percentage of their assets these schools are cutting into with their “college cost offer” is markedly higher than what the rich or the poor have to entertain.
And financial literacy being what it is, many families don’t realistically see how that will affect their bottom line. Hence, the OP’s nightmare situation.
And so many believe there’s a guarantee a highly reputed school will bring that they willingly go into no man’s land.
It often starts with - I’ll worry about money later or I’m not taking cost into account.
A multi billion dollar industry is built upon naïveté or gullibility. Sorry to say it like that but …
Marketing at its finest.
Nightmare? I drive a well loved Honda. Every day I get a card in the mail or fifteen emails proclaiming that it “costs less than you think” to drive a Mercedes, Tesla, BMW, or whatever. The percentage of my assets that these cars would cost me is beyond what I am prepared to pay for safe and reliable transportation. So I keep my Honda. And yes, my costs would be markedly higher (for me) than it would cost someone with more assets.
But that’s not Mercedes problem, is it?
The “nightmare situation” is that a talented kid might have to turn down (fill in the blank elite college) for (fill in the blank less elite college which is affordable via merit aid).
Sorry, not buying into your “nightmare” scenario.
I think I am not making my point clearly. Personally, I’d never make this decision.
I drive a beater even though our family technically could afford better cars because my kid is currently in a sport and, in our family’s eyes, training in that sport is a more valuable cost. (After the kid is done competing, they will most likely spend a lifetime volunteering in the sport at a high level to help future athletes.) I also buy a lot of items that we use second-hand. But splurge on organic food for most of our meals, especially meat. I am constantly making trade-offs (probably comes from having Depression-era parents.)
I say it’s a nightmare scenario because the OP’s situation is exactly that. Would I make that decision? Heck no. Hell to the no. Not worth it. In this day and age, researching a solid “quality education/decent ROI/affordable to the family” solution is literally the difference between a successful launch into the world and, in extreme cases, decades of financial shackles.
Unfortunately, this family has a mom and kid that had one opinion, step-dad had another, and now they are looking at a nightmare situation. Not being able to say no and come up with an acceptable school option to all parties involved has led to the question of divorce. The financial literary here and personal boundaries were severely lacking.
It is very interesting that most top colleges have no merit but only need based. Majority of the middle class earning 100-200k would be out of the contention in such situations. Won’t the colleges lose out on many superior performers like this? Usually in super performers, don’t majority of them come from middle class families? Rich class lacks in desire and poor class may not have access to all the tools. At least this is a very common scenario in developing countries.