Letter from you to daughter and ex: I have this amount of money for college ($$ per year or 529 amount). Include info the school told you about how to get financial aid. That’s it. Tell them how you will pay, either a lump sum in august and jan, or on a monthly payment plan to the school (not to ex).
If ex wants more, she’ll have to sue you in your state. How will she get the money by August to pay the college?
You have to take control. Can you make her complete the FAFSA? No. Can she force you to pay? Not without going to court. Even in NJ, the courts aren’t ordering parents to pay for $65000 schools, and I think most are ordering each parent to pay half of the state tuition, not thousands for room and board, not for private schools. Most states will not require a parent to pay an unreasonable amount, especially if things have changed in 15 years since the agreement was made.
I would have liked to have told my kids, ‘pick any school you want, live in the most expensive dorm, sign up for study abroad and never work.’ Not in the budget, and they had to do the work of filling in forms and applying for scholaships in order to go to college. Families all over America are trying to figure this out right now, and many will NOT go to the schools they want to this fall because of finances. If your daughter doesn’t fill out the forms, she’ll be one of them.
Be firm. This is how much I have for your college. Period.