Forced Financial Aid: Two Arguments as to Why Iowa's Law Authorizing Courts to Order Divorced Parents to Pay Postsecondary-Education Subsidies Is Unconstitutional

• Author: Dan Huitink
• Position: J.D., The University of Iowa College of Law
• Pages: 01

J.D., The University of Iowa College of Law, 2008; B.A., Central College, 2004. I would like to thank the editors and members of Volumes 92 and 93 of the Iowa Law Review for all their work in helping to prepare this Note. I am particularly grateful to Angela Wolfe, Lou Ebinger, and Sam Langholz for their extraordinary work and to Professor Todd Pettys for his guidance in developing this topic. Thank you to my wonderful wife and mother for their constant love and support. Finally, thank you to my father who will always be the type of professional and person I aspire to be.

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I Introduction

Today, a postsecondary education is exceedingly important for occupational and financial success.¹ In 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that "90 percent of the fastest-growing jobs of the future will require some postsecondary education or training."² Additionally, recent statistics have shown that in one year, the average college graduate will earn almost double the salary of her peers who only have high-school diplomas.³Over the course of an individual's career, that difference calculates to nearly one million dollars.⁴ Given this data, it is unsurprising that college enrollments are increasing.⁵ In the fall of 2005, a record estimate of 17.4 million people enrolled in America's colleges and universities.⁶ The National Center for Education Statistics estimates this number will increase twelve percent by 2014.⁷

This growth in postsecondary enrollment coincides with increased costs for higher education.⁸ For the 2004-2005 academic year, the average annual cost of attending a college or university was $13,743.⁹ Compared to the previous ten years, this number represents a nearly thirty-percent increase in costs after adjustments for inflation.¹⁰ As a result, many American students Page 1426 struggle to meet the financial burden of paying for their educations and, upon graduation, face unprecedented amounts of debt.¹¹

Fortunately, many students receive financial aid in the form of loans, grants, and scholarships from the government and academic institutions themselves.¹² Nevertheless, this aid remains limited because the federal government, colleges, and universities still "consider it primarily the family's responsibility to pay for school."¹³ Therefore, they limit students' financial- aid packages to the amount their families-not the students themselves-are unable to pay.¹⁴ Importantly, this limit applies regardless of whether the students' families actually contribute to their college expenses.¹⁵

Although the parents of a number of American students help them cover their postsecondary-education costs,¹⁶ many students are not as fortunate and face this financial burden on their own.¹⁷ Statistically, many of these students are likely to come from divorced families.¹⁸ In fact, one study Page 1427 has shown that students whose parents are divorced are substantially less likely than their peers from intact families to receive financial support for postsecondary education from their parents.¹⁹ As the divorced population in the United States continues to climb,²⁰ the number of college students from divorced families who need financial assistance will almost certainly increase as well.

Some state legislatures have responded to this problem by authorizing state courts to order financially able divorced parents to support their children's pursuits of higher education.²¹ This Note examines the constitutionality of Iowa's version of such a statute, Iowa Code section 598.21F (the "Postsecondary-Support Statute"),²² which authorizes Iowa courts to order divorced parents to pay postsecondary-education subsidies for their children.²³ Specifically, it evaluates the constitutionality of that statute under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.²⁴

II The History Of Postsecondary-Support Obligations In Iowa

The existence of postsecondary-support obligations in Iowa arises from the concept of child support. In Iowa, noncustodial parents who are either divorced or unmarried have a legal duty to pay child support during their Page 1428 children's minority.²⁵ In 1949, the Iowa Supreme Court characterized this duty by stating that parents are "morally and legally obligated, aside from any statute, to support [their children] during minority."²⁶ Following common-law tradition, however, unless the child is "physically or mentally unable to care for itself," an Iowa parent's obligation to support his or her child usually ends when the child reaches the age of majority.²⁷ But when does a child reach majority?

Before 1972, most states followed the common-law rule that an individual reached majority at the age of twenty-one.²⁸ Under this approach, courts were able to require parents to pay costs for their children's postsecondary educations when establishing or modifying regular child- support duties.²⁹ As a result, little controversy appeared to arise over educational-support issues from divorce proceedings because qualifying students were able to seek support from their divorced parents up until the age of twenty-one.³⁰ The issue became contentious, however, when states began to reconsider the age of majority in the 1960s.

In the late 1960s, in the wake of the Vietnam War, a sentiment arose in the United States that eighteen-year-olds ought to be able to participate and vote in the democratic process if the government could draft them for war.³¹This sentiment led to the 1971 ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment Page 1429 to the U.S. Constitution, which lowered the minimum voting age to eighteen.³² This change resulted in a number of states, including Iowa, reducing their definitions of the age of majority.³³ In 1972, Iowa lowered the age of majority from twenty-one to nineteen.³⁴ In 1973, Iowa lowered the age again to eighteen.³⁵ Today, most states impose child-support obligations until the age of eighteen with some, including Iowa, extending the obligation to nineteen if the child is still a full-time high school student.³⁶

Since lowering the age of majority, state legislatures and courts have struggled to identify when to require divorced or divorcing parents to pay for their children's postsecondary educations. Today, states typically follow one of three approaches.³⁷ First, some states reject any requirement of support obligations of a divorced or divorcing parent after a child reaches the age of majority.³⁸ Second, some states authorize courts to order postsecondary-education support if that support is part of an agreed upon settlement between the divorced or divorcing parents.³⁹ In these states, however, if divorced or divorcing parents do not have an agreement to contribute to their children's postsecondary educations, then courts cannot independently order them to provide it.⁴⁰ Finally, some states authorize courts to either enforce agreements or independently order divorced or divorcing parents to pay postsecondary-education support when such agreements do not exist.⁴¹ Iowa follows this last approach.⁴² Page 1430

Traditionally, Iowa has required divorced or divorcing parents to pay some form of support for their children's pursuits of higher education. Prior to 1997, the Iowa Code defined "support" in its child-support statutes to require noncustodial parents to support any children between eighteen and twenty-two years old who were attending high school or pursuing approved postsecondary education full-time.⁴³ This definition effectively gave Iowa courts the authority to conceive the age of majority broadly if the "child pursued a postsecondary education as a fulltime student."⁴⁴ In 1997, however, the Iowa legislature "remove[d] the postsecondary-support clause from the definition of support" and "redefined support to terminate at age nineteen."⁴⁵ The legislature then enacted a new statute-formerly codified at Iowa Code section 598.21(5A) and now codified at section 598.21F- authorizing courts to order either parent or both parents party to a divorce to pay a postsecondary-education subsidy.⁴⁶

Under this statute, Iowa courts can order postsecondary-education subsidies for children who are (1) eighteen to twenty-two years of age; (2) unmarried; and (3) enrolled full-time in a college, regularly attending vocational or technical training, or "accepted for admission to a college" for the next regular term.⁴⁷ Additionally, a qualifying child cannot have repudiated his or her parent "by publicly disowning the parent, refusing to acknowledge the parent, or by acting in a similar manner."⁴⁸ If a child meets these qualifications, Iowa courts have the discretion to order one or both of the divorced parents to pay a postsecondary-education subsidy "if good cause is shown."⁴⁹ To determine good cause, courts consider "the age of the child, the ability of the child relative to postsecondary education, the child's Page 1431 financial resources, whether the child is self-sustaining, and...