<p>Thanks, everyone, for chiming in on this. You’ve all provided great food for thought, and I’ll be incorporating many of your ideas in dealing with this.</p>
<p>All best.</p>
<p>To your original question of who should pay - even if the family situation wasn’t complicated due to the divorce/remarriage like yours, this is a question that’s handled in different ways by different families. There is no single right answer. The answer depends on the philosophies of the parents, usually as a result of their life experiences, as well as their financial resources and practical ability to pay.</p>
<p>The decision of ‘who pays’ is something the parents and student decide at some point. When the situation is complicated by divorce/remarriage the discussion of financial obligations is critical for any remarriage. You and your H should have had that discussion before you married since you knew he had a kid from the previous marriage.</p>
<p>What I didn’t see in your post is whether you and your H had this discussion prior to marriage and if so, what your response/commitment was. I think that’s important in you being able to come to an answer for the question.</p>
<p>You can also consider how you’d feel if the situation was reversed - i.e. if it was ‘your’ kid from a prior marriage in college and you lost your job whether you’d expect that the family funds (i.e. not ‘yours’ or ‘his’ separately) should be used to pay for your kid. However, if you don’t have kids of your own you might not be able to legitimately answer this question.</p>
<p>You also mentioned that your H indicated the kid might pay for his college now but your H wants to pay the kid back if he does. It sounds as if you resent that as well. I think this quality in your H is an admirable one, probably not unlike qualities that attracted you to him in the first place. Looking at this from a practical perspective, the kid could pay for himself now and your H could pay the kid back (if he wants to) based on your H’s ability to pay him back in the future. There’s no fixed of obliged payback rate. What’s wrong with your H planning to reimburse the kid in the future if your H is reasonably able to if that’s what he wants to do? I think this sounds like a good compromise. Although you’re throwing around the figure of $35K as his income potential you don’t really know what he’ll earn 5 years from now for example.</p>
<p>Also consider how much of this resentment you hold is simply because the kid is from your H’s other marriage and therefore you feel no vested interest at all and perhaps even animosity regardless of the financial point you’re raising. I’m not saying you feel this way at all since I know nothing about you but it certainly is something that happens often enough in remarriages with prior kids.</p>
<p>And Blossom’s right on - this kid didn’t cause this situation and he’s dealing with his parents on the topic, as he should be.</p>
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I’m not sure that I think it is admirable. To expect one loved one to shoulder a heavier burden so another can shoulder nothing at all might not be such a loving thing. I guess it would depend on the circumstances. I don’t necessarily think an adult child should always be put ahead of a spouse.</p>
<p>^^ I meant the quality of wanting to pay for his kid’s college - not necessarily the entire more complex situation here. Compare it to the dads who seem to cut off as much support for their kids as possible when they get divorced. There are examples from posters on CC where despite the dad’s financial ability, some seem to not want to pay a dime for their kid’s college education after getting divorced.</p>
<p>When the parents’ financial situation changes, whether there are step-relatives involved or not, it’s not unreasonable for the student’s expectations to change as well. If there is a parental job loss or financial reversal, the dependent student cannot expect that things will just go along the same way as they always have. It may require the student to take out some Stafford loans. It may require transfer to a cheaper school. It’s unfortunate, but that’s life.</p>
<p>Okay…I’m a first wife and I have an entirely different take on this. It may be way off base, but…</p>
<p>If Emmie were not in the picture would H have gone back to school? The returning to school part of this scenario is being portrayed as if it were an absolute necessity. I doubt it.</p>
<p>If dad hadn’t returned to school himself and had gotten any job, even a minimum wage job, would he be better positioned to pay for his S’s school? In other words, is it the return to school which not only costs $ but presumably means no income for a couple of years, that is the real reason dad has a problem paying?</p>
<p>If so, if I were the ex-W/mother, I wouldn’t have a whole lot of sympathy with a father who returned to school after his kid started college and then has trouble paying his S’s tuition. That’s a choice dad made and doing what’s best for him and his new wife, is not a reason to beg off his obligation to his S. </p>
<p>I don’t know how it works now, but back in the day, it was rather common for SAHMs to return to school when the youngest kid went off to college. And my alma mater was adamant that it not only would it not adjust fin aid to take account of the extra tuition cost, but if mom could go to college, mom could work. Maybe not at the same sort of job she could get with a degree…but she could get some job and the parents’ obligation to pay tuition superseded mom’s desire to go back to school. </p>
<p>Sure dad lost his job. Maybe dad couldn’t get any job at all. But dad made the choice to go back to school and shell out money for his own tuition and also to put himself in a situation in which he wouldn’t even be in a position to take a full time job for a couple of years–years during which his S is in college.</p>
<p>Dad could have waited til S finished school. He chose not to. There are consequences for that choice. He should bear them, NOT his son.</p>
<p>This is a case similar to a H who creates a second family. A couple gets divorced. Their kids reach college age. Dad has remarried. He now has other children. He claims that he can’t pay for older kids’ college because of his obligations to his other children. Not in my book. He already had obligations to his first family. He doesn’t get to reduce them by creating a second family. And the second wife who says “it isn’t fair to OUR children” if paying for first family’s education means less money for theirs gets no sympathy at all because she KNEW about the first family when she married him.</p>
<p>Again, please understand that if dad’s inability to pay for S’s tuition were caused solely by the loss of his job, I’d be entirely sympathetic. But to me at least, dad stopped looking for work very quickly and enrolled in school. No sympathy at all. That’s his choice.</p>
<p>Keeping in mind my POV is from someone whose stepmother pitched a fit about my in-state college tuition costs so much that my Dad refused to pay past my first year. My mom had no formal agreement as her attn’y focused on lifetime alimony (yes, she got it). I was not eligible for aid because, you got it, my Dad & stepmother made too much. I had to quit, work full time and go to school at night.</p>
<p>You married your husband knowing he had kid(s) to be educated. For whatever reason you have chosen the route of keeping your finances separate, each paying 50% of the mortgage, etc. To each their own. Now your husband is without a job and yet you’re still concerned about him paying his 50%, frustrated over paying for all your dinners out while he is in a training program to get a better job…okay? Again, however you want to work that. Now you have an issue with how his son’s tuition is going to be paid. From where I stand, you have made every effort to separate your finances, keep things separate, and keep score, and now you want to make joint decisions on how his money is spent? You can’t have it both ways. You are either a united couple in marriage and finances and make decisions jointly, or you keep your finances separately and you stay out of the conversation regarding how he spends his money, specifically regarding his son’s tuition. </p>
<p>Please also be aware that when you married him your salary became part of the financial equation for fin-aid as far as the school was concerned, like it or not. If you were so concerned with keeping finances separately you might have considered a different arrangement, at least until his kids were out of school. His son would be in a lot better position to receive aid at this point without your salary in the mix, which clearly you have no intention of including in the mix anyway.</p>
<p>FWIW, I’m not against the son taking loans. That should be worked out between the Dad, the son & his mother. The stepmother needs to stay out of it, as she has made every effort to separate herself.</p>
<p>I agree that the son should take the maximum Stafford loans for the balance of his education. The father can offer to help pay them off later if his circumstances change.</p>
<p>Wow, jonri. You are not making first wives look good there.</p>
<p>Well, then I guess I am not making stepchildren look good…</p>
<p>There are all kinds of blended families. Blended being the operative word. I have seen it work beautifully even when the break up was exceptionally bitter. The parents (my SIL & her ex) put the kids first always and I give them all the credit in the world. My parents…I love them, but they did a freaking lousy job.</p>
<p>I may be totally off base, but from the snippet of information we got in post #1 it doesn’t seem very blended.</p>
<p>My husband is not educated and I can tell you that finding a job for someone in his 50s with no education, even a minimum wage job, is a heavy lift. </p>
<p>So here’s another question: If the son were living with both of his birth parents and dad lost his job, would you expect everything to stay exactly the same for him at the expense of everyone else in the family?</p>
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Why should she stay out of it if she is being expected to support her husband and probably his retirement, as well, because of those loans?</p>
<p>My point is she doesn’t get to have it both ways. You can’t live your life separately when it suits you, and then demand joint when the situation changes not to your liking. I’m not against the son taking loans. That decision needs to be made between the Dad, students & the mom. Hopefully the Dad/Husband will make a decent decision for all parties. That may mean taking on a PT job. As has been pointed out, lots of SAHM’s go back to work or take on PT jobs when their kids go back to school or their H’s experience job loss. Maybe the student also takes on at PT campus job. Who knows? It’s not the stepmother’s conversation.</p>
<p>She doesn’t get to live her life separately, she is supporting the husband and never said that she wants to completely cut off the son.</p>
<p>zooser - I adore you but I think we’re coming at this from different directions and are going to agree to disagree. Peace. :)</p>
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<p>Not if he weren’t married. He’d be making less than a living wage, and probably without any health insurance or other benefits, because that is the norm for minimum wage workers. Of course, he is married. It would appear that he and his current wife need to sit down and have some discussions about finances and mutual expectations, in addition to similar conversations with the ex and son.</p>
<p>He’s in his FIFTIES!! He does not have education, and he lost his job. I cannot imagine that he took the decision to go back to school and incur $20K in debt lightly. </p>
<p>The family as a whole needs to adjust to the changed state of affairs caused by job loss, just as every other family in that situation has to adjust. That includes the ex and the son, as well as the current wife. If the parents had never divorced, if the father had never remarried, the son would STILL have to adjust to the inability to graduate completely debt-free. I can’t say that I find the attitude displayed by the OP attractive, but I also cannot like a son who is willing to bankrupt his father instead of taking on some debt to finance his own college education.</p>
<p>Z-mom, no. I thought I’d made that clear. If the problem were caused solely by the dad’s loss of job, I’d be very sympathetic.</p>
<p>How would you feel if your H had a low paying but stable job and one day came home and announced “I’ve quit my job. I’m going back to school so I can do something I enjoy more. This means that we won’t be able to contribute much to the kids’ education. So, please tell our S/D who is supposed to start junior year in a couple of weeks that (s(he has to figure out a way to pay for it.” </p>
<p>Would you suggest that your H might want to wait until the kid was through college?</p>
<p>Blueiguana, I’m a huge fan of yours, too. What I really think about this is that the family should communicate based on new information and go from there.</p>
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This may be the issue. I thought the OP meant that her husband was terminated and doing some job training so he can get a job at all at some point. If this is not the case, then I apologize. If it is the case, then I’ve been there and worked extra hours to pay the bills so he could become employable. My husband’s situation is different in that he is functionally illiterate and just doesn’t have as many options as other people. In OP’s situation, if he was terminated, I would think the entire family would want him employable ASAP. If he chose to leave his job with a kid in college, then shame on him.</p>
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<p>“Skin in the game” better mean supporting you in retirement, hudsonvalley. Every financial expert will tell you that financing retirement should come before financing your children’s college educations.</p>
<p>Z-mom, </p>
<p>You’re right. He was terminated. I’m not trying to mislead you.</p>
<p>But after being terminated, he enrolled in a 2 year community college program. I’m saying that it really isn’t clear that he could not have gotten another job of any sort.</p>
<p>So to the extent he can’t pay because he lost his job, I’m sympathetic. To the extent that he can’t pay because he’s stopped looking for work for 2 years so he can go back to school, I’m not.</p>
<p>And, again, I think that colleges view these 2 situations differently when they assess financial need.</p>