<p>My guess is, the feeling was that if you marry into a family you are accepting responsibility for the whole family. You are not just marrying the spouse, the kids are part of the package.</p>
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Duh!! Why would someone think differently. You end a marriage and divorce a spouse, not your children. If your intended does not think that your children are part of the package, perhaps one should rethink marrying them or consider marriage after their kids complete college.</p>
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It’s not that straightforward, IMO. </p>
<p>It’s one thing to feed and house a kid that is not yours, that you did not raise, that you have had no responsibility for for the kid’s entire life.</p>
<p>It’s another to get blindsided by the fact that just because you get married you are suddenly on the hook for possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars for someone else’s kid, especially if you have kids of your own to put through college.</p>
<p>I think if people knew this ahead of time, they wouldn’t get remarried until after the kids were out of college. It’s not obvious though.</p>
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<p>I agree that many, maybe even most, people don’t understand EFC’s and the like until their oldest kid hits college application season. The government has done an abyssmal job of education younger parents on the need to save for college and most financial planners and accountants don’t understand the formulas either unless they have had kids in college. </p>
<p>I disagree that many people would choose to delay their marraige, particularly if they have younger kids…it’s so difficult being a single parent and people quite naturally want a mate. I chose to delay remarraige (for blended family/kids issues, including college costs) but it did cost me a wonderful relationship that I miss every single day and it’s unlikely that I will ever remarry now. I don’t regret it, but just want to point out that some people are okay with staying in a relationship without a formal commitment but some, including my ex, are not.</p>
<p>But what if the step-parent will not agree to help? Even though they married the person freely they may refuse to help step-children. I am not in this situtation but was just thinking about it. And again, I guess there is no saying that the biological parents will help either. The poor kids are the ones who suffer with no support.</p>
<p>As you point out…there is nothing that says that the bio parents must help with college. It’s a factor that the financial aid calculations consider…but beyond that…it’s up to each family. AND I’m quite sure there are plenty of families that do NOT contribute to the college educations of their kids.</p>
<p>So…what do you do? You work part time and go to a community college part time. There are many folks out there who got degrees on a plan that was MUCH longer than four years due to finances.</p>