Anonymous wrote:This happened to me, when DC was accepted to Columbia. XDH sat DC down and told them they’d have to attend a state school instead—and a few months later he bought younger DC a car.

We had enough college savings to completely cover the state school, but not for a private university. I pointed out to XDH that if he would contribute to a state school, he should contribute that much to a private university, and XDH couldn’t say no to that logic. He ended up contributing about $10k a year, and my mom and I, and college savings, contributed the rest.

PPs are right, your ex has no obligation to contribute. But, some college financial aid offices will look at your X’s assets, which puts your kid in a double bind.

It does matter if DC is your dependent, though, and you to get your Ex to agree to this if he’s not providing much financial support. By the time the divorce had gone through and I was supporting two kids in college as a single mom, Columbia came through with pretty generous financial aid. That may have had something to do with the fact that DC was a junior by then.

Anonymous wrote:PP here. Sorry, I should have said that if your divorce took place in DC, he is required to pay until she's 21. It doesn't matter where everyone is located now.

Anonymous wrote:Can she get emancipated from him? Call them first. This is a horrible situation and I'm 100% there have been many others in this exactly same situation, so if you talk to the right person, they will have answers for you. Maybe they won't be what you want to hear, but then you'll know and can move on accordingly. I'm guessing she can get a free ride at your state university if she got in ED at Cornell, so maybe that's the better option? Start applying to other schools in the meantime.

Anonymous wrote:People need to stop giving blanket advice without knowing more details.

Is there $200K already set aside for her in an account somewhere, and the mom can cash flow part of the remaining $120K but needs the other half ($60K) to come from dad? (I'm assuming Cornell is $80K/year.)

If so, kid can borrow almost $30K of dad's share in federal loans that won't be debilitating. Then they're only short another $30K. You don't turn down Cornell because of a $30K shortfall. She could save that money by taking off one semester and attending a cheap local school and pack in a ton of transferrable credits that semester (I did this at a comparable college with my language requirement), then come back the following year and finish up.


Anyway my point is that we have no way of knowing how much money she is short or all the other possibilities for filling the gap.

Anonymous wrote:People need to stop giving blanket advice without knowing more details.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since Cornell is a private school, their financial aid forms would have asked about the finances of BOTH parents. Did you complete those forms? Did you ask your ex for his financials?

Yes of course we did. He makes way more than I do

Anonymous wrote:My parents didn’t pay for college but luckily I qualified for federal financial aid in the form of grants and loans. For the Expected Family Contribution portion, I had to take out private loans, I used Sallie Mae. I didn’t have credit history at that point but the private loans were in my name. My brother was able to convince my mom to take out a Parent Plus loan for his EFC portion but it’s still a headache for both of them since he can’t consolidate those and it’s on my mom’s credit (she remarried and her husband wasn’t thrilled since it impacted borrowing potential). Contact the Financial Aid office and meet with them to discuss options - will most likely be private and public loans. But please explain to your kid exactly what it means taking out $. Look at potential income after graduating and monthly loan amounts. Mine are $800 a month and it’s debilitating in the beginning of a career. I paid off private by the time I graduated so I could defer and pay based on income, but it’s still hampered my ability to invest and save. I also had to turn down really good opportunities during school and after because of the debt (eg awesome internship that would have made my career in favor of a shitty job which paid more). But before taking out a ton of loans, consider affordable options like state school, community college, less prestigious school which offers scholarships or even schools abroad.

Anonymous wrote:Since Cornell is a private school, their financial aid forms would have asked about the finances of BOTH parents. Did you complete those forms? Did you ask your ex for his financials?