In the United States, when a married couple divorces, a state court judge issues a judgment which usually includes an order for child support for any children who live with one of the parents. In most cases, the child support order expires when the child reaches the age of adulthood.
In the State of New Jersey, state court judges, very often order that child support be paid past the age of 18 if the €adult€ is attending college classes. The reason that this is so terribly unfair is that married parents are not forced by court order to send their adult children to college. This is because the married parents in most cases, do not have a family court judge determining what economic benefits the parents must provide for their children. Imagine if lawmakers decided to pass a law that all parents must send their adult children to college. I think the politicians would hear from millions of outraged parents. The reason that hundreds of thousands of New Jersey divorcees must suffer from this injustice, is simply because there is no law barring them from this type of discrimination.
How many New Jersey divorcees have gone to jail for not paying child support for their adult children? Maybe they lost their job in the economic downturn and it's not their fault. They should never have been ordered to pay for child support for their adult children in the first place.
Another issue to consider is that the child support money does not go directly to the college for the benefit of the €child€. It goes to the custodial parent. Does that parent always spend the child support money on benefits for the child? I think all we know that the answer to that question is a definite no. The sad truth is that even parents with a well intension often spend the money on other things before the child gets any benefit from that money.
In the last several years, border patrol customs agents at major airports, regularly pull passengers off of foreign bound planes because they are on a list of parents who are behind on child support. Maybe they shouldn't have been on that list because the support is for their adult children. Maybe they are barred from going on a flight for business and now they even lose their job and income because of this terrible injustice.
If parents want to send their adult children to college, then that's their right.
How to change this? There are two possible ways to change the situation. There is a web site that is dedicated to passing a law that emancipates all children at the age of 18 in the State of New Jersey. Please share this link on all of your social networking sites, including Facebook and twitter. http://www.emancipatenj.com