According to the plaintiff's statement of net worth, sworn to on May 15, 2017, he incurred $231,510 in student loan debt pursuing his medical degree. As the plaintiff's enhanced earning capacity is marital property, the Supreme Court should have required the defendant "to bear a concomitant portion of the student loan debt incurred" by the plaintiff in pursuing his degree ( Chamberlain v. Chamberlain , 24 A.D.3d 589, 594, 808 N.Y.S.2d 352 ; seeCook v. Cook , 237 A.D.2d 891, 892, 656 N.Y.S.2d 1000 ). Accordingly, the defendant's 25% share of that debt should have been set off against her distributive award of the plaintiff's enhanced earning capacity (seeChamberlain v. Chamberlain , 24 A.D.3d at 594, 808 N.Y.S.2d 352 ).
The Supreme Court providently exercised its discretion in awarding the defendant 30 percent of the value of the degrees and license constituting the enhanced earning capacity achieved by the plaintiff during the marriage, based upon his indirect contributions to the attainment of that enhanced earning capacity by paying all of the family's living expenses while the plaintiff was a student and modifying his employment schedule in order to enable him to care for the parties' older child, who was born during that period ( see McSparron v. McSparron, 87 NY2d 275, 280; Miklos v. Miklos, 9 AD3d 397, 398; Morrongiello v. Paulsen, 195 AD2d 594, 596; Barbuto v. Barbuto, 286 AD2d 741, 742-743). Since that enhanced earning capacity is marital property, however, the Supreme Court should have required the defendant to bear a concomitant portion of the student loan debt incurred by the plaintiff in pursuing her degrees ( see Cook v. Cook, 237 AD2d 891, 892; MacDonald v. MacDonald, 226 AD2d 596, 597). The defendant's share of that debt should have been set off against the defendant's distributive award, reducing it to $24,969.