Related Post-Secondary Degrees and Child Support Refusal

[HelloFred]

My wife has been separated from her ex for over eight years now. Her daughter lives with us full-time. The ex has a history of paying child support reluctantly; seeking every opportunity to reduce or avoid it. My wife's daughter attended a college diploma programme that was paired as a pre-requisite for switching to a University to continue in their business program. This plan was done with the full knowledge and "support" of the ex. The diploma portion is two years; the university degree another three. She has just started the University portion. Now the "ex" announces that because she has her college diploma, he no longer has to pay child support even though we all knew she would be in school for 5 years due to the linked programme. He claims the "first diploma" rule is absolute; I have been told this is a "situational" thing and he has no right to make an arbitrary decision like this. Can anyone clarifiy this for us. She lives at home with us while going to school. His financial situation is far greater than ours so before we risk a costly legal fight we would like to try to get as much information input as possible.

This decision by him is further compounded by the fact he has been refusing to pay for any of the daughter's post-secondary eduction (and his other two children as well) leaving us to struggle to find the funds to allow them to continue their education. He has adopted the position that he wants them to "earn their education themselves" to avoid having to contribute himself. This is despite the fact his income is over three times that of my wife's and his household income at least twice that of ours.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

[dadtotheend]

Notwithstanding that he has resisted CS, he has presumably been paying it, probably according to the federal guidelines, right?

You should do some research on section 7 extraordinary expenses. You haven't given a lot of detail, but he would seem to have an obligation to pay 3/4 of the tuition, based on the parent's respective incomes. His not having paid any yet (?) is contrary to what a court would order.

Don't know about how far this goes. I would be interested in where the cutoff time resides for CS while the child is in school. It seems that a degree that is a prerequisite to another degree, totalling five years wouldn't be out of line for CS purposes. On the other hand, 5 PHD's would be out of line.

There must be case law that draws the line in the sand.

[billm]

A nuclear family may decide not to pay for any of their children's education, yet in a separated family, one parent can always force the other to pay for (proportionally) all of the childrens education, even if normally that parent would not have done that? Is that true?

[dadtotheend]

Yes, that's pretty much true.

When you think about it, that rule is in the children's best interest. If parental disagreement about whether should post-secondary be paid is strong enough to require state intervention, and the best interests of the children is the biggest priority, then the state has to come down on the side of tuition being paid. Is the state going to deny the child a post-secondary education?

The problem comes when unscrupulous CS recipients manipulate that rule just to continue getting child support, especially if there isn't a need.

[billm]

Can a separation/divorce agreement state that the parents can individually decide if and how much to pay for post seconday education? The kids will be adults at that point and I don't want to force my ex to pay, that is her decision and the same for me. I will do what I can to ensure my kids go to post secondary school, but I don't like the idea that how much I pay is decided now, many years before, and perhaps my ex feels the same way.

Can an agreement between the parents that states this be legally binding if one parent changes their mind and challenges it later to force the other to contribute a certain amount?

[dadtotheend]

The rules in family law utlimately arbitrate between parents who can't come to an agreement themselves. We shouldn't forget that parents are the best judges of what`s good for their kids and therefore are free to, indeed encouraged to craft their own agreements that suit their family`s interests.

When we seek legal counsel in validating separation agreements, the lawyer has a duty to their client to seek the best deal for his client. All negotiations are carried out in the context of what the court would do if it had to get that far, which lays the foundation for parents with an idea of what they want to happen to depart from that because the lawyer tells him or her that he or she can do better - cue the arguing.

Then we come to forums like this one and we listen to the experiences of other people in our lives where the outcome is so often determined by a court or what a court would do. The conflicted parents are the ones who are newsworthy, and the ones who end up in or near court. The amicable ones that did do the job on their own don`t have the juicy details for others to pay attention to and so they don`t garner attention. Those parents got the job done with little fanfare and moved on with their lives. They didn`t make their problems the focus of their lives and those around them for the months and years it took to settle their differences. Those stories faded to black. So notwithstanding that we are free to come to our own terms, most people`s separations end up being governed by what a court would do, and they get the attention, and we forget that we`re free to do it on our own.

Yes, an agreement can provide that each parent is free to indvidually choose to pay or not to pay for post secondary. As long as the agreement is properly executed and each side was legally represented when the agreement was made, it will difficult to overturn the terms down the road.

If the agreement was easily invalidated then it wouldn`t really be worth much as parties would rely on and dispense with agreements at their convenience. That said, it is family law, where the best interest test could conceivably trump the agreement down the road. For that to happen though, would require a compelling extenuating circumstance e.g. parent who just won millions of dollars still refuses to pay school, or any multitude of examples.

Then again, what the hell do I know