<p>The daughter lost on all counts.</p>
<p><a href=“Judge rules against NJ teen who sued parents for financial support - nj.com”>Judge rules against NJ teen who sued parents for financial support - nj.com;
<p>Rockville…all the FAFSA is going to give this girl is $5500 for her freshman year. I sort of doubt that she is looking to fund a community college, or any other public university in NJ. That $5500 is a drop in th bucket for her likely college costs.</p>
<p>re: airing her issues…ahem…SHE is the one who brought suit, not her parents. </p>
<p>Her catholic schools as she can continue there. </p>
<p>I would agree with someone upstream…parents should complete,that FAFSA…but requiring them to pay? No I don’t agree with that under these circumstances. This family needs some very significant family counseling, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Morris County has an excellent community college. </p>
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<p>Note that the rights and responsibilities of adulthood do not all happen at age 18. For example, financial independence for college financial aid purposes does not happen until you are 24, unless you get married, serve in the military, or have some less common situations. Legal ability to purchase alcoholic beverages happens at age 21.</p>
<p>Anyone who decides they will SUE their parents in court to get something from them when said child refuses to follow house rules won’t get sympathy from me. If you want resources from family, you have to live with their rules, NOT try to force a court to be your bully. </p>
<p>The young woman’s name is Canning, not Coleman. </p>
<p>The daughter is wasting the court’s time and taxpayer’s money. </p>
<p>Multiple threads on this topic.</p>
<p>The judge just ruled against her.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2014/03/judge_issues_ruling_in_teens_suit_against_parents.html#incart_hbx#incart_best-of”>http://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2014/03/judge_issues_ruling_in_teens_suit_against_parents.html#incart_hbx#incart_best-of</a></p>
<p>This whole thing never would have happened if Rachel Canning had not been able to get her fees paid by the lawyer she’s living with. That’s a weird setup. Maybe she’ll sue him next.</p>
<p>It’s a family issue with many complexities. Of course 18-year-olds cannot sue their parents for not buying them things they want. Pretty much what the judge said.</p>
<p>I really don’t want the courts deciding if parents can impose a curfew or require their child to take out the trash. I support parental rights to make decisions in the best interest of their child. Parental Abuse is a different matter and I believe our overwhelmed social workers are not able to get kids out of their abusive situations fast enough. Sure wish this child could “serve time” in a different atmosphere (kind of like “wife swap”) and be required to milk cows or slop pigs for 30 days. Then mom and dad’s curfew/trash detail wouldn’t seem so bad.</p>
<p>I thought she wanted her diverted college fund used for her college expenses and her parents to pay FAFSA.
That the parents fill out FAFSA seems a legitimate request.
The college fund is not being diverted, the parents just refuse to release it.
But the o_O is that she wants a $600 monthly stipend… Without that demand, the other two points (parents filling out the FAFSA and agreeing for the college fund to be used to pay for college tuition) would seem reasonable. The stipend demand makes things appear in another light.
I feel for the kids whose parents refuse to fill out FAFSA documents. (I do think parents should have that basic courtesy since without it their child is stuck and the high costs of college now make it impossible for students to pay for it themselves unless they get a full tuition or full ride scholarship somewhere, which is not achievable for many students.)
Demanding a monthly stipend certainly doesn’t warrant any court hearing as that falls into the “spoiled brat throwing a tantrum” category.</p>
<p>Other thread on this topic is here <a href=“NJ Teen Sues Parents for college fund - Parent Cafe - College Confidential Forums”>NJ Teen Sues Parents for college fund - Parent Cafe - College Confidential Forums;
<p>The news reports on this were pretty uninformative. For instance, they didn’t even mention whether the parents signed a contract with the Catholic school upon enrollment agreeing that they will pay a year’s tuition. Which they probably did. That tuition agreement is between them and the school and has nothing to do with their relationship with their daughter. They can’t weasel out of it because they have a problem with their daughter. If the school allowed students to withdraw midyear and stop paying tuition, there was no mention of the parents informing the school that their daughter was withdrawing. So, I expect they should be required to pay the full amount of her high school tuition. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t have thought that they would need to pay child support past the age of 18, but the NJ law seems to indicate they have to support her through the end of her schooling. But if she left home, I expect that doesn’t apply. The reports are unclear on whether she left or was thrown out. Some have said that this law means they also need to pay for college. That seems ridiculous to me. Are parents also legally required to pay for grad or med school? What if she decides to become an eternal student? Seems to me that they owe her nothing for education beyond high school.</p>
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<p>I agree with this…would this entire episode have made it this far without the influence of the other family. It’s one thing to take a friend of your young adult into your house and give counsel…it’s quite another thing to shell out for the legal fees.</p>
<p>I think the Judge very diplomatically told the “host family” that they have crossed a line when he said:</p>
<p>“This family is well worth the effort to salvage. It does appear more energy has been utilized to tear up this family than to figure out how it can be brought back together.”</p>
<p>I think the legal problem here is the double standard that’s being implemented. There are divorced men (or men who never married their child’s mother) who may not have even seen their child for years, who may have absolutley no relationship with their child, but (in some states, including New Jersey) the courts are ruling that they do have an obligation to provide assistance for college when financially able.</p>
<p>So, the courts are ruling that divorced fathers have a financial obligation, but married fathers don’t have the same obligation? That doesn’t seem to be very valid legally.</p>
<p>It seems after this ruling that a lot of single fathers can return to court and say the court ruled that parents don’t have an obligation to provide assistance for college, so how can they be ordered to do so?</p>
<p>If courts are going to make the determination that parents are not legally responsible to provide any support for their children to attend college, then that has to apply equally to married and single parents. </p>
<p>There is a reason that courts started ruling against single/divorced men…the issue of single mothers wanting to provide support to their children, but not able to do so on a single income was predominent enough for courts to begin ruling that single/divorced men did need to share in the obligation. If courts now begin ruling that no parents have a financial obligation, then we’re going to be pricing a lot of children of single parent homes out of the ability to attend college.</p>
<p>It may be a slippery slope, but it seems that it’s a slippery slope that we’ve already started down…</p>
<p>I think this is going to end up as one of those ‘he said-she said’ type cases where no one can ever work out what’s gone on in the family home to cause the rift in the first place. </p>
<p>The thing that strikes me as odd is that there’s another family who clearly believes in her to the extent of housing her and being willing to pay her legal fees. If she was that much of a spoilt brat and acted even half as bad as her parents allege when she’s with her friend’s parents, then I doubt that they would be willing to go to that much trouble for someone else’s child. </p>
<p>“Her parents are not only withholding paying for college, they will not give her the info she needs to file FAFSA.”</p>
<p>Her parents are not withholding paying for college. They have a college savings account for her, and they have stated that she will receive the proceeds to pay for college. I am not aware that they have said they will not help her file a FAFSA. If they were to refuse, she would not be able to get any loans … since the parents are still paying medical for her (not sure if they would have to pay the allowance post-high school).</p>
<p>I do not know what goes on behind closed doors, so I can’t say that the family has done everything the way I would do it. However, I respect the fact that parents must be able to have rules, and I don’t believe any parent “owes” his or her kid a college education (or high school, but if they signed a contract for the year, they do have to honor that - I know I signed one for my D’s parochial school, and the school could have sued me for nonpayment). Yes, the assumption is that the parent is first & foremost responsible for paying for college … but that just means that the taxpayers and school endowment won’t pay before the parents. It doesn’t mean that the parent “must” pay for school.</p>
<p>Let the enabler pay her college tuition. The parents probably owe the HS, as described above. </p>
<p>Just curious what CC’ers think about the Rachel Coleman case that is all over the media today. Everywhere I look, I see people demonizing her and calling her a spoiled brat for demanding that her parents pay her promised tuition. I am sure she is spoiled - I am sure she is acting out. She’s in teh second half of her senior year. Similar to the terrible twos - I would expect separation to be tough, and some kids (not mine by the grace of God) became really difficult. That said, I have an issue with parents of an honor student/ two sport athlete who has been admitted to several schools with the promise of tuition by parents getting the rug cut out in February of her senior year. Honestly, unless she did something illegal or horrifically awful I think the parents made a verbal agreement to pay tuition. Does anyone agree, or am I the only one who thinks that the penalty being given to this kid might muddle the intended message? I think it is completely fair to kick her out if she doesn’t want to follow house rules, but to set a consequence for 7 months from now? Doesn’t give her much chance to make amends and clean up her act - or much motivation.</p>