Wife's Ex is demanding we help pay for kids college I said NO!!!!

ThoughtsOnThis wrote:

A little background my wife and I are both educated we both have multiple master’s degrees. Income wise we make close to $200K however we did it on our own. My wife has heavy student loan debt close to $100K, I have minor loan debt $20K as I attended college on Track and XC Scholarship. My wife had a son prior to our marriage. The issue is the son’s biological does not make much money and recently married a woman with 3 kids already. The money need has somehow become the topic of conversation whenever he talks to us. Now our son I say our son as I have been in his life for over 14 years is applying to colleges and his biological is talking about how we need to help pay for college. We do well but have already been clear to both of our children that college is on you guys as in we will co-sign loans, but we are not going into additional debt when there are ways to get a degree without crazy debt. His biological was pissed when I said not happening, I am not going to pile on an additional mortgage payment
when he can join the military and pay for school or take out loans himself. His biological also did not push sports on him when he wanted him to come live with him which limited scholarship opportunity. Years ago his biological paid us like $200 a month far less then he was required to pay we never made a big fuss over it. It is getting exceptionally annoying dealing with his especially when he starts demanding money for stuff that nobody assisted with me or my wife for. I get college is important but I did it on my own and I expect my kids to go but to do it themselves I think it is part of the first step of being an adult. Also Student loans can be deferred if needed while they are establishing themselves post college graduation.

prorunner123 wrote:

ThoughtsOnThis wrote:

A little background my wife and I are both educated we both have multiple master’s degrees. Income wise we make close to $200K however we did it on our own. My wife has heavy student loan debt close to $100K, I have minor loan debt $20K as I attended college on Track and XC Scholarship. My wife had a son prior to our marriage. The issue is the son’s biological does not make much money and recently married a woman with 3 kids already. The money need has somehow become the topic of conversation whenever he talks to us. Now our son I say our son as I have been in his life for over 14 years is applying to colleges and his biological is talking about how we need to help pay for college. We do well but have already been clear to both of our children that college is on you guys as in we will co-sign loans, but we are not going into additional debt when there are ways to get a degree without crazy debt. His biological was pissed when I said not happening, I am not going to pile on an additional mortgage payment
when he can join the military and pay for school or take out loans himself. His biological also did not push sports on him when he wanted him to come live with him which limited scholarship opportunity. Years ago his biological paid us like $200 a month far less then he was required to pay we never made a big fuss over it. It is getting exceptionally annoying dealing with his especially when he starts demanding money for stuff that nobody assisted with me or my wife for. I get college is important but I did it on my own and I expect my kids to go but to do it themselves I think it is part of the first step of being an adult. Also Student loans can be deferred if needed while they are establishing themselves post college graduation.

Help your kid go to college man, it doesnt have to be some expensive private school, send him to some community college that is in your city so tge expenses would be lower, also have him work part time so he can split the bill or cover some costs. Army is good too. Even being without a college is not that bad nowadays as we live in a time where labour is valued highly so if he is a hard working man, he could get by just fine without a degree

ThoughtsOnThis wrote:

interesting take wrote:

"Doing it on your own" is very different than it used to be. Do you want to contribute some to the schooling? Why wouldn't you want to pay part of the share?

The reason being is because he was in sports when he lived with us and his biological took him out of them and told him he did not have the time to assist in his participation. There for his biological prevented him from scholarship opportunities which I think if his biological wants to pay he should pay the scholarship share that he would have possibly earned. His half sister is a year and half younger and is already being scouted for her sports which will provide the scholarship funding. Also we have our own debts we are paying off and the private university he was accepted to is $45,000 a year I am not going to pile a close to $2,000 bill on our budget when it is not necessary.

chgray wrote:

ThoughtsOnThis wrote:

The reason being is because he was in sports when he lived with us and his biological took him out of them and told him he did not have the time to assist in his participation. There for his biological prevented him from scholarship opportunities which I think if his biological wants to pay he should pay the scholarship share that he would have possibly earned. His half sister is a year and half younger and is already being scouted for her sports which will provide the scholarship funding. Also we have our own debts we are paying off and the private university he was accepted to is $45,000 a year I am not going to pile a close to $2,000 bill on our budget when it is not necessary.

Your wife, sons Mother, has an obligation to help her son go to college. How much is subjective but she should feel like she can help the child she brought onto this earth with a reasonable amount each year.