I never understood these laws before we had to deal with our situation.

I know this is a little boring but it is worth a read. This helped me understand the direction this country is taking in the ordering of child support/college expenses by the courts. I never understood before all this happened with my step son how people could be court ordered this way.

College is ridiculously expensive nowadays. Colleges often do not give financial aid to young people whose parents are well off. Their limited financial aid funds should go to those who truly are in need. But forcing a whole class of people-divorced parents-to pay up, isn't the answer. The bottom line is-How can a divorced person be ordered to pay for college when their neighbor, who is staying married, can refuse to pay for his kid’s college and no court can touch him?

This article appeared in the Pierce Law Review in 2004. It is a journal associated with the University of New Hampshire School of Law. So I think now it is only New Hampshire and Pennsylvania that have decided that court ordered college expense laws are unconstitutional.

http://law.unh.edu/assets/images/uploads/publications/pierce-law-review-...

"By ordering divorced parents to support their adult children, courts across the country continue to violate the constitutional rights of those parents. Treating similarly situated people the same should be the goal of our legal system. Ordering divorced adults to pay or contribute to their child’s college expenses, when no such order can be made of married adults, does not accomplish this goal. As a result of these unjust orders, the equal protection rights of divorced parents are consistently violated throughout this country....

....Given all of the potential problems with courts issuing educational orders, not to mention the different standards in states across the country, all states should follow New Hampshire’s lead and pass laws removing judicial discretion from all post-secondary education issues. The result would be that parents would only have to pay for college if they volunteered to do so. Following New Hampshire would not only prevent future litigation in this area, but further problems between children receiving the funds and their resentful parents could be avoided since parents would not be forced to pay expenses they either could not afford or would never have volunteered to pay in the first place. In addition, children across the country would be treated exactly the same since the remedies currently available only to children of divorce would be eliminated. If the goal of all state legal systems is to treat all people the same, regardless of where they live or what their marital status is, only one option exists: for all states to remove judicial discretion and give parents the option of deciding whether or not to pay for their child’s college expenses." RYAN C.LEONARD (JD)