One of the goals of this blog is to familiarize lawyers and clients going through divorce with the importance of putting economic issues ahead of emotional ones. But this edition addresses a problem that afflicts all American families when it comes to what can be their largest marital expense; college.
In Pennsylvania, the law has not changed. Since Curtis v. Kline, 666 A.2d 265 was decided in 1995 parents do not have to contribute a farthing to the post secondary education of their kids absent an agreement to do so. Thus, in one sense, the issue is easy. Except that even the greediest of Pennsylvania parents often wince at sending their freshly graduated 18 year old into a world with few marketable job skills. Until recently, it meant the child was sentenced to employment at $8-10 and hour. Today, the post pandemic job market has pushed those entry level wages into the $15-18 range. But, unless an adult child can parlay that wage into building significant job skills, prospects for wage growth in entry level employment are thin.
So, divorce lawyers typically run into families that have done some saving for college in the form of a 529 Plan (which is marital property) or an UTMA account (which is a completed gift and not divisible in divorce). Usually, the savings start out briskly when a baby is born but then peter out as child expenses for travel baseball and/or ballet balloon or the parents elect to use what they could save to fund their own quests for trips to Florida...
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