Your children are barely entering kindergarten and you suddenly find yourself facing a divorce. You’re probably trying to figure out all sorts of things like splitting assets and liabilities, child support and visitation agreements, but one thing we at Kevin Hickey Law Partners often find is that parents of young children don’t consider is their children’s college plans and how they will be funded. We understand, because, frankly, all of these decisions can be overwhelming during such an emotional time in your life. That is why it is important to hire an attorney that is experienced and able to help you think of things like college funding. We know what the impact the end of a marriage will have on plans such as college. The goals in planning ahead for college funding are 1) making sure your kids’ future needs are going to be met, and 2) to avoid taking the other party back to court. Particularly if your kids are young, a whole lot of life and changes can happen in nearly two decades. You will want to have all of these things settled well ahead of time.
If a non-custodial parent gave a child $20,000 from a 529 Plan, the family could be expected to contribute up to $10,000 more towards college savings in a future year. If the custodial parent gave a child the same $20,000 from the Plan, the amount would have been already calculated into the financial aid formula and would been assessed at only up to $1,128 (5.64 percent).
These decisions are complex and not easy. Unfortunately, our firm has had clients come into our office that did not consider college funding during the initial divorce process. It is heartbreaking as a parent to not be able to provide for our kids’ needs, don’t find yourself in that situation. Hire Kevin Hickey Law Partners to help you during your divorce process to assure that your child’s future needs are met.
Things are about to get better. Call us.
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