Judge orders parents to pay estranged daughter's $16K annual college tuition
Caitlyn Ricci is no long on speaking terms with her parents.
However, the 21-year-old not only wants them to pay her college tuition but has won a New Jersey court judgment requiring them to do so. Their share of her educational costs is $16,000 per year, the Daily Caller and the Philadelphia Inquirer report.
“Anyone who hears this story thinks it’s crazy, and no one can believe that this case saw the inside of a courtroom,” wrote Ricci’s mother, Maura McGarvey, in a blog post. “But it did. And I lost.”
Accounts differ as to what led up to the impasse between Ricci, her divorced parents and her paternal grandparents, who reportedly funded the Camden County litigation.
Her parents say she opted to move in with her grandparents after they tried to impose chores, a curfew and summer classes when they discovered she had been drinking as an underage young adult. Even after an earlier court ruling required Ricci to apply for financial aid and have the warring parties split Ricci’s remaining college costs, their daughter refused to do so, the parents contend.
“I have zero respect for my parents for what they’ve done and how they’ve handled the situation,” Michael Ricci told the Inquirer on Thursday. “They’re the ones who are responsible for tearing my family apart and tearing my daughter away.”
The court of public opinion has supported the parents and attorney Andrew Rochester says the resulting criticism has been hard on his client.
“Caitlyn is genuinely a sweet, loving kid,” he said. “And to see her just destroyed by this, it’s heartbreaking.”
