College and Divorce: are parents legally responsible?

Pennsylvania divorce law clearly maps out financial responsibilities for divorcing parents. Is paying for college among the legal requirements of Support?

No, and here’s why. In Blue v. Blue in 1992, the state Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling that specified an amount of annual support be paid by a divorced father for his son’s college education. At issue in Blue v. Blue was the legal precept of a parent’s obligation to pay for “instruction and education as may be necessary to fit the child reasonably to support itself and to be an element of strength rather than one of weakness in the social fabric of the state.” (Commonwealth v. Gilmore, 97 Pa.Super. 303 (1929). The 1992 Supreme Court opined that the original phraseology had been incorrectly interpreted over the decades and needed to be updated; “the term “education” in this context did not contemplate collegiate or professional education, but rather was confined to elementary and vocational education.”

Although the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a law to remedy this (Act 62 of 1993. Section 3) it was later ruled unconstitutional in 1995 in Curtis v. Kline. Curtis v. Kline was an appeal to the Supreme Court by a divorced father who had successfully argued that paying support for his two college-attending children was a violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states “No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The 1995 Pennsylvania Supreme Court wrote: “The essence of the constitutional principle of equal protection under the law is that like persons in like circumstances will be treated similarly.” The Court’s conclusion: that married and unmarried parents should not be classified differently from each other for legal purposes. Since Pennsylvania does not require married parents to pay for their children’s college, neither can it require unmarried parents to do so.

Currently, then, unmarried parents in Pennsylvania cannot be legally forced to pay for their children’s college education. Neither can they be forced to pay general support for living expenses past the age of 18 or high school graduation, whichever comes later.

Should the Pennsylvania General Assembly choose to ratify a law that either increases the age limit of emancipation of children, or requires all parents – married and divorced – to provide more financial support for children in college, this could change. But no such legislative action is on the horizon at this time.

All this said, there is nothing to stop two divorcing parents from forging their own contract to divide college costs as part of the divorce process. It’s not unusual for a Property Settlement Agreement to provide that both parents will split or share the cost of college. The state of Pennsylvania, though, cannot currently force such an arrangement as obligated support.

My office can help you sort through ways in which you and your divorcing spouse can figure out your children’s higher education needs. A free, initial consult is available by calling my staff at (215) 345-5259.