Time to revamp the finances. Your husband agreed to all of that, so he should be the one responsible for all of it. Stop thinking of it as a family expense.

Holy crap that's bsc.

I am not of a mind that kids can't receive any help from parents regarding college but this is absurd. I can't believe your DH agreed to this, and signed it. It is so much money. My sympathies is all I can offer. I remember reading about that girl who sued both her parents to pay for a private college and won. This is incredibly unfair to you and DS.

Why doesn't SD attend a state college for the first two years and THEN transfer to the ivy league or 'dream college?'

Depends on the state you're in. Your DH may be held to it since it is in detail to begin with. My DH brushed it all off when I asked him about it when SD was in high school as well.

In NJ, DH was forced to pay college tuition. His original decree said they would simply split college costs. (It did not specify equally). DH was prepared to pay half, but he was not in agreement to pay full child support for their one child in addition to her room and board while away at school. BM took DH to court, and the court said not only was he not allowed an opinion on what school SD chose (over $50k per year), but he also had to pay 65% since he made more than BM. On the other hand, he was not expected to pay child support while SD was away at school, so it was pro-rated for the months she was at home. In SD's school, study abroad was required, and SD of course chose the most expensive program and DH had to buck up for that as well. However, the judge did say that SD was required to apply for all scholarships, grants, and loans she could. She was in a sorority, but DH only paid what was on an actual tuition term bill. BM did do us a favor by omitting all of DH's information on the FAFSA and told the school they have no contact with SD's father, so she qualified for quite a bit of assistance. DH only had to pay around $16000 per year for his share. It was a lot, but we somehow managed.

My SD is now in grad school, and BM is footing the entire bill. SD talked to me about wanting help from DH because BM is controlling her thanks to the financial assistance, but she shut up once I told her that DH's and my children together would not be getting their undergrad paid for like she did simply because we will not have the money. I *think* it sunk in that we will not be helping her further. I personally think my children will have a better start in life because we will not be simply handing them a free-ride for college. Like you, my DH and I worked our way through. SD24 is incapable of supporting herself. That's a huge parenting fail in my opinion.

It's probably worth asking an attorney if it's worth taking BM to court to revise that. Only if your DH will agree, but it's really not right to go into debt yourselves just for an undergraduate degree (my SD could only get waitressing jobs with her degree...a total waste of money!) Your child together deserves to have as much of a foundation as she does as much as that's possible.

Aside from the ridiculous divorce decree - I can't believe he was putting his bonus money into skid college funds behind your back. WOW.

Thank god that there is a clause in my ex and I's decree that the kids have to apply for scholarships, grants, etc and then we are required to help them AFTER that. This isn't even something that either one of us addressed it's just a mandatory state clause. I don't get how it's legal to require divorced parents to pay for any college the kid chooses no matter how expensive. How come COD's get college guaranteed to them basically debt free while the rest of us have to work and take out loans?!

And this is the reason that my attorney - as well as DH's Awesome Attorney - told me that there was NO WAY he was going to let me agree to pay for college.

It was a long time ago, but I think his words were something like "married people can't be forced to pay for college, why should a divorced parent have to?"

Rock on, dude. Rock on.

Your husband is the problem in this. It doesn't matter if you want to change the court order, he obviously doesn't want to. So again the problem is not your SD, or the BM, but your own husband. And yes, the way you guys are doing your finances, he was hiding money from you.

College payments were not put in my divorce decree or in my husband's divorce decree. College is not a right, it's a privilege. Food and shelter is a right of a COD.

Even starting off with a high PSAT WILL NOT guarantee her admission to a highly selective school. Stanford for example could fill the freshman class 3 times over with the students who have PERFECT SAT scores and 4.0+ grades from top high schools. And probably not 1 in a thousand 99% PSAT scorers will score a perfect SAT.

What you need to start filling her head with is that she needs to strive to achieve a MERIT scholarship from one of the next tier of private schools. "The top awards are schools like GA Tech, Duke, U Chicago, UNC Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, Boston College, Boston U, Johns Hopkins, Emory, Vanderbilt, GW, Tulane, Case Western, Rensselaer, Rochester." (I copied that.)

Believe me it is an incredible honor to obtain one of these. If she wants to strive for the best - well then she should strive to REALLY achieve something.

But I would still see an attorney about what legal recourse you have. College costs even 10 years ago were nothing like they are now. I don't know if the courts can force a parent to borrow money.

1. Get to a good lawyer and see if this is enforceable given his decreased income.
2. If it is, get a divorce and make your H commit to paying 1/2 of your shared bio's college. The added benefit of this is that your credit rating will NOT take a big hit if your H decides to default on the loan for whatever reason.
3. If you still stay in a relationship with him, make sure your finances are separate. The not telling you about his bonuses really irks me.
4. Even Dave Ramsey says it is more important to fund your retirement than your child(ren)'s college education.

Parents should never ever ever ever ever ever ever be forced to pay for college for their children. Ever. Did you hear me? Ever!!!!!

So completely sick and tired of the double standard of divorced parents versus married parents when it comes to college.

All courts should stay the hell away from college in divorce decrees. They should not be allowed to even be put in a decree.

This pisses me off like nobody's business.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

OK, I feel better, I got that out of my system.

Nope I got one more.........courts stay the hell away from college tuition in divorce decrees!!!!!!!!!!

What are the consequences of not paying? Would the courts require the DH to take out loans? Or cash in his retirement? What if he can't find a lender?

If he just doesn't have the money, what do they do? Throw him in jail? Wouldn't the courts take into consideration that $100K tuition *could* have been as low as $12K as in WTF's example above? Wouldn't the court be required to base 'mandatory' payments on lowest available cost and assume that the person owed did everything to mitigate that cost, like for an insurance claim?

This is why I have and recommend a prenuptial. Know before you tie the knot. My DH's ex wife had died before we married and there was no provision for college funds in the divorce. One SD was and is not college material. The other SD worked full time and used her employer benefits to attend and finish college. My bio sons were finished college when I remarried. Both worked during college and went to schools that were affordable on what had been saved for them.

My friend married a wonderful guy who was divorced. Her prenuptial lawyer reviewed the divorce decrees there would be no surprises.

I know you'd like your DH to see a lawyer about this mess. Whether or not he does, you should see a lawyer about how to protect your assets (both joint and separate). Not the lawyer your husband uses, but one who is looking out for you.

To clarify what I was saying earlier. It's true that many of the Ivies do not give merit scholarships.

But basing one's college choice on how selective it is = stupid. Stanford is the most selective undergraduate program by far - but for example that is NOT where one should go for a degree in architecture. The University of Arkansas (a not so highly rated state school) has a far superior architecture degree.

I would hire a student who earned a merit scholarship from Georgia Tech or Emory before I'd hire someone from one of the "lesser" Ivies. Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton do not need to offer merit scholarships. But many other fine universities do offer them.

Trying just for the "most selective" is not a good strategy.

Don't get so worked up about all of this now because BM still has to agree to pay her half of the tuition and extras too. It goes both ways and since your DH's parents have been saving he's got a leg up on her honestly. So firstly she has to agree to it and most importantly they have to accept her. The college has to accept her, housing has to accept her, sororities have to accept her. And who knows she might meet Romeo from Community College down the road and fall in love before graduating out of high school. I mean you said she's 15 a lot can happen between now and then but mostly he's not getting out of it with a court order like. And it wouldn't hurt if you started your own fund for your kid. Not to be ugly but you can't say you don't want your son to have financial help with college but get mad that nobody is saving for him. You made that deal with your DH; he didn't make that deal with BM.

The most selective colleges for the most part do not have sororities. So saying that sorority costs have to be covered at Harvard is really an oxymoron.

Even Stanford did not allow sororities until just a few years ago. And there are very few with most students not participating.

It's not an issue of private vs public. UC Berkley, U of Michigan, U of Texas, U of Colorado, U of Virginia are far more selective than many, many of the private schools.