Generally, divorced parents must pay child support until the child becomes of legal age. What do you do if you are a divorced parent who wishes to send your child to college but do not have the financial means to do so? One possible solution is to petition the court for a child support modification. In that modification, you can request post-secondary education support when the child becomes an adult, or before, if the issue arises.
In Washington State, postsecondary educational support is the court ordered payment parents have to make when their child decides to receive additional schooling after high school. Under Washington case law, Washington courts have determined that postsecondary educational expenses can include tuition, room and board, health fees, and insurance. http://www.genesislawfirm.com/post-secondary-support-child-support-college.
When the court decides whether to grant post-secondary education support, under RCW 26.19.090, the judge must first decide whether the child is “in fact dependent,” and relies on the parents for basic necessities. To make this determination, the judge considers the following factors: (1) the child’s age; (2) the child’s needs; (3) expectations of the parties for the child when they were together; (4) child’s prospects, desires, skills, abilities, or disabilities; (5) what kind of post-high school education the child wishes to pursue; (6) parents’/guardians level of education, standard of living, and resources; and (7) amount/type of support the child would have had if the parents stayed together.
After the judge determines whether the child is “in fact dependent” on his or her parents, the judge then considers three additional factors when deciding whether to award post-secondary education support. First, the judge weighs the obligor parent’s financial ability to pay and the value of the degree in question. If the obligor parent is financially comfortable and if the degree is likely to produce a high paying job, the more likely it is that the judge will order the obligor parent to pay for post-secondary education support.
Second, the judge considers whether the parents would have paid for college if their relationship did not fail. If the parents likely would have done so, the judge will be more inclined to grant support for the child’s education. This second factor can be difficult to prove because it is often difficult to find direct evidence that proves the parents would have paid for college if they did not separate. Therefore a parent petitioning the court for post-secondary education can offer circumstantial evidence such as prior agreements between the parents, whether the parents went to college themselves, and whether the parents’ parents put them through school.
Last but not least, the judge will take into account the child’s academic performance. The better the child performs in school and on college admission tests (such as the SAT), the more likely the judge will award post-secondary support. The reason for this is because the judge is evaluating the child’s likelihood of succeeding in school in order to determine whether it is even worth it to order post-secondary education support.
In conclusion, parents should take advantage of this option when considering to send their child to college. Not only do parents have an interest in seeing their children succeed, society does as well. If there are more educated people in society, there will be less poverty, crime, and the state will have to pay less money to support under-privileged citizens. Equally important, society will progress tremendously because there will be more people who have the ability to benefit the country as a result of their newly obtained knowledge.
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