The saga of New Jersey student Caitlyn Ricci’s tuition lawsuit against her parents continues.

In today’s chapter,  Samantha Walkins of Point Loma Nazarene University reports the case is now headed to appeals court.

A New Jersey student is suing her divorced parents because they refuse to fund her education at the college of her choice, citing New Jersey’s curious legal precedents.

Her case has drawn so much attention that it has prompted legislation to preempt future litigation – and under a ruling Monday, the dispute could drag on another year.

…The judge ruled on Halloween that Michael Ricci and Maura McGarvey must pay $16,000 per year to help Caitlyn with her tuition. Another judge, Thomas Shusted, ruled earlier this month that the parents must pay their daughter’s outstanding $906 tuition payment at Rowan College at Gloucester County, which she attended prior to Temple, the Inquirer said.“I’m not going to pay. I’m not going to give them any money until my daughter has a relationship with me and we start to heal our family,” Michael Ricci told ABC 7 Chicago after the hearing before Shusted.

…Spills onto parenting website, fundraising campaign

The legal dispute has even spilled onto Yahoo Parenting, where Michael Ricci wrote a first-person account of his family struggles – and where his daughter’s attorney posted a response.

“My ex and I have five kids between us, a mortgage, and other expenses. Why don’t they take any of that into account?” Ricci wrote.

Rochester shot back: “She is a solid A/B college student and works a 30 hour job” now that Caitlyn Ricci lives with her grandparents. “Mr. Ricci should be proud of her accomplishments instead of disparaging [her] because he doesn’t want to pay for her education.”

McGarvey also set up a fundraising page at GoFundMe to help cover her legal bills and explain her side of the story.

When Rochester claimed that Caitlyn’s parents had incomes sufficient to pay for their daughter’s Temple tuition, he was referring to “the income of two separate households, mine and my husband’s plus my ex-husband’s and his wife’s” – four adults, five minors and two mortgages, McGarvey wrote. She personally has “more debts than assets.”