With summer just beginning, many people have visions of swimming pools, beaches and family vacations. Others in New Jersey have visions of Sallie Mae, tuition bills and book fees.
After four years of what has become obligatory college contribution pursuant to the mandates of Newburgh v. Arrigo, many parents in the state are then faced with the daunting possibility of an additional 3-4 (maybe more?) years of opening their wallets and contribute toward the cost of graduate school; sometimes for their 24, 25, 26 or 27 year old children who are not yet considered emancipated pursuant to our current laws. Many times, child support also continues during that period.
Indeed, New Jersey courts have recognized that completion of undergraduate education is not the determinative factor for either declaring emancipation or terminating child support. Many times, the determination as to whether child support would continue, and along with it the parents’ obligation to contribute toward the cost of the child’s education, focused largely on the whether the child, is “beyond the sphere of influence and responsibility exercised by a parent and obtains an independent status of his or her own”.
New Jersey is in fact one of the few states in the country that still requires divorced parents to pay for their children’s college educations. Even fewer require contribution toward graduate school. However, New Jersey remained an outlier in that regard.
For example, in the 1979 case of Ross v. Ross, the Chancery Division declared that the parties’ daughter could not be considered emancipated as she was attending law school after obtaining her undergraduate degree.
As recently as 2010 in Mulcahey v. Melici, the Appellate Division upheld a trial court’s determination that a 23 year old child was not emancipation and was entitled to contribution toward her education costs as well as continued child support. Eric Solotoff previously blogged about this case in his post entitled: I Don’t Have to Pay for My Kid’s Graduate School, Do I?
The New Jersey Emancipation Statute, signed into law on January 19, 2016, is set to take effect on February 1, 2017, and may change the way courts view graduate school contribution.
Whereas previously emancipation was a fact specific inquiry focusing on the level of independence of the child, now, child support “shall not extend beyond the date the child reaches 23 years of age.”
Does this mean that the possible obligation to contribute toward a child’s graduate school education is a thing of the past? If emancipation must occur by the age of 23, and the obligation to contribute hinges on the question of whether the child is emancipated, how could a parent be required to contribute to graduate school?
Another interesting question will be whether an agreement to pay for graduate school at the time of the divorce, pre-statute will be enforced.
Recall also the New Jersey Rutgers University professor who was ordered to pay more than $112,000 for his daughter to attend Cornell Law School in 2014 because he had agreed to contribute in his divorce settlement agreement, but failed to place any cap on tuition.
The enforcement of agreements to contribute toward college is extensively addressed in Robert Epstein’s – Appellate Division Addresses Enforceability of Settlement Agreement as to College in New Published Decision – but it will be interesting to see if the same principles are applied when it comes to graduate school.
We will keep you posted as the case law is decided.
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