Court Opinion

ID: 9765147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:53:48.126906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:05.846662
License: Public Domain

*247Dissenting Opinion by
Hoffman, J.:
In this case the lower court ordered appellant to pay $15 a week from his net income of $140 a week to help support his 18 year old daughter by a previous marriage, who has now been accepted at Temple University and seeks to obtain a college education.
The lower court, in passing upon this case, distinguished the rule enunciated in Commonwealth ex rel. Rice v. Rice, 206 Pa. Superior Ct. 393, 396, 213 A. 2d 179 (1965). “In the absence of an agreement to educate, a father has no duty to aid in providing, a college education for his child no matter how deserving, willing and able that child may be unless he has sufficient estate, earning capacity, or income to enable him to do so without undue hardship.”
The lower court found that the support order would require appellant, who is supporting a second wife and a 19 month old child by his present marriage, to make a “personal sacrifice, (but that) we do not feel that it will cause (him) undue hardship.”
Appellant now seeks to vacate this order on the ground that it imposes an “undue hardship” upon him.
In a child support case, the trial court has broad discretion “to determine under all the circumstances what is just and equitable to the child and to the father.”1 Commonwealth ex rel. Raitt v. Raitt, 203 Pa. Superior Ct. 226, 229, 199 A. 2d 512 (1964). On review, it is the function of this court to only determine if there was sufficient evidence to sustain the trial court’s determination. Commonwealth ex rel. Arena v. Arena, 205 Pa. Superior Ct. 76, 207 A. 2d 925 (1965).
*248In the instant case, the facts do not lend themselves to a compelling conclusion that the support order imposed by the court below would cause the father “undue hardship.” The court below in applying this standard found that the support order would not have this effect.
As the appellant has failed to show clearly and convincingly that the lower court erred in its application of the law to the facts in the instant case, I do not believe that this court, with its limited scope of review, should reverse the order below.
I would affirm the order of the court below.
Jacobs, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

 In making this determination, the court may weigh the crucial importance to a child of a college education in today’s society. Apart from the cultural and intellectual benefits which accrue to the recipient of a college education, it has become increasingly apparent that a college degree is a vitally important prerequisite to a successful commercial career.