My husband and I are contemplating divorce. Our marriage isn’t on the rocks, but a quick trip to Guam (the new capital for marriage dissolution) may be the only way we can pay for our son’s college education.
Turns out that students whose parents have split up have a huge advantage in qualifying for need-based scholarships and FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Students whose parents who are living together in relative middle-class bliss are at a distinct disadvantage. Obviously, the situation calls for some creativity and perhaps a lawyer.
We’re thinking that to facilitate our separation, my husband could move out – maybe into the guest room or the garage – just until the college of our son’s choice has a chance to review our finances and realize that Lewis’s single-parent mom with the paltry freelance-writer income is deserving of full tuition reimbursement.
My husband suggests that while we’re divorced, there’s the possibility that one of us could remarry – for money.
He has my blessing. If he can meet and woo an heiress while living in the basement of his not-really-ex-wife’s house, I think he should go for it. Then he can divorce her, walk away with a generous alimony settlement and our tuition worries will be over. Call me a romantic, but I think it’s a win-win situation.
Ever since we began to discuss our mock divorce, I’ve noticed that Harris has been sneaking off to Best Buy to price plasma screen TVs, and he spends time lingering over the Sunday newspaper circulars looking at pictures of leather recliners and pool tables. I suspect that he’s plotting to use the piles of money that colleges and universities will offer our son to turn his half of the kitchen into the ultimate man cave.
I know that staging a divorce seems like a drastic (and not entirely ethical) way to meet the high cost of paying for our child’s college education. Believe me, we’ve looked at other options. We’ve met with financial planners and attended seminars sponsored by the local high school, where money pros from College Bound and MEFA have charts and handouts that focus on modified, adjusted gross income and tax form number 1040, Schedule A. We’ve heard of parents that, in order to secure a need-based scholarship, have sold everything they own, put all their money into a pillow case and moved into a cardboard box. We know another couple who are spending all their savings on ski trips and sushi so that they’ll be broke when it comes time to qualify for college aid. These are desperate times.
We’ve already paid for our two older kids’ college educations. And it wasn’t easy. My husband has figured out that instead of diplomas hanging on the wall, we could have had a Lamborghini Diablo parked in the driveway. When my daughter started college, I sent the financial aid office a photo of our 2003 Hyundai with the dented doors. “Look at my crummy car,” I pleaded. “Surely we deserve some financial aid.”
“You look good on paper,” the school replied.
We look married on paper, too. And I suspect it will stay that way. I’m not anxious to go to Guam (I think they do full body scans at the A.B. Won Pat International Airport) and
I think the only place to hang a plasma TV in our kitchen is over the microwave. Divorce (even a temporary one) may not be the best college financing strategy, but I was kind of looking forward to telling my husband that it was “his weekend for the kids.”
Carol Band is an award-winning columnist and mother of three. Send a prenuptial proposal to her at [email protected].
