You survived the divorce. Then your kid turns thirteen, and a new bill you never quite planned for starts looming on the horizon: college. In this practical, reassuring episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia sits down with Vicki Vollweiler, MBA, CDC, the founder and CEO of College Financial Prep and author of College Planning for Divorced and Widowed Parents. Vicki built her practice specifically around separated, divorced, remarried, and widowed families after years of working as a certified divorce coach, when clients kept asking her the same question: how am I possibly going to afford college as a divorced parent? As a divorced mom herself, currently guiding her own daughter through the college search, Vicki brings both firsthand experience and deep technical expertise to a topic most divorced families don't realize they need to plan for years in advance.
The heart of this episode is a financial aid distinction most parents have never heard of, and one that can cost or save a family tens of thousands of dollars: the difference between the FAFSA, which typically considers one household's finances, and the CSS Profile, used by many selective schools, which often wants information from both biological parents and their new spouses, meaning a blended family could suddenly be reporting four incomes instead of one. Vicki walks through the hidden costs that catch divorced families off guard, from test fees and application fees to campus visits and tutoring, and the fee waivers available to offset them. She's equally candid about the emotional layer underneath the spreadsheets: co-parents often carry different values and different definitions of "the best school for my child," and neither is wrong, but those differences need to be named and discussed long before decision letters arrive.
What makes this episode so hopeful is Vicki's reminder that this process doesn't have to be adversarial or lonely. Listeners walk away with two clear, actionable takeaways: first, to check whether college is even addressed in their divorce agreement, and if it isn't, to start that conversation with their co-parent now, ideally years before senior year, since tax returns from tenth and eleventh grade can shape a family's first financial aid award; and second, to loop in the wider support system, whether that's grandparents, aunts, uncles, or family friends, to help make campus visits and the college search feel like a gift instead of a burden. For any divorced or divorcing parent staring down the cost of college, this conversation offers real clarity, real savings strategies, and genuine reassurance that this milestone can still be joyful.
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