Divorce, Children’s College Costs and New Jersey Law: What Are Your Rights As a Parent?

Family Law Legal Help in Somerville, New Jersey

If you are a parent in New Jersey, you likely know that our state is one of the few that can require parents to pay for their kids’ college costs and even for graduate school. Parents’ legal responsibility to pay college costs can remain in place during and following a divorce.

Loving and engaged parents who take care to provide for the full needs of their children may nonetheless balk at the high costs of a private and even public college education, and may reasonably wish to limit or avoid the expense of paying tuition for one or more children. The family law attorneys of Lyons & Associates can provide effective representation aimed at defining your responsibility to pay college expenses following your divorce.

We can examine the numerous factors that may affect your responsibility to pay for a child’s education. These factors may include:

  • What are your child’s true academic abilities and needs?
  • How much assistance has your child requested? Does it accurately reflect pending expenses?
  • Are you able to assist? Is your spouse?
  • Are your child’s educational goals reasonable?
  • Were you planning to pay for your child’s education prior to your divorce?
  • Does your background and that of your spouse lead to the reasonable expectation that your child would attend college?
  • Does your child have assets, i.e. a trust fund? Could he or she inherit funds or receive a gift from a grandparent or other family member?
  • Can your child work to pay for school?
  • What type of financial is available?
  • What is your relationship with your child?

When the court makes a decree regarding your child’s college costs, it will do so based on the information regarding the above factors that it has in its possession. At Lyons & Associates, we can obtain the information that will affect the court’s decision and represent you in all hearings relating to your divorce, including hearings pertaining to college costs.

To learn more about New Jersey divorce law relating to children’s college expenses, contact us online or by calling 908-575-9777.