Under Rhode Island law, parents are not responsible for paying for college or college-related expenses. There are some exceptions that Rhode Island divorce attorneys have seen Rhode Island family court judges address.
Generally speaking, the above statement is true. Parents are not responsible for paying college expenses. This is true, as long as there are normally accepted situations.
For example, most “kids” don’t take college courses before they turn 18, and many even before they turn 19.
Under Rhode Island law, parents may enforce child support obligations until the child is 18 years old and has graduated from high school or until the child is 19 years old at the latest, provided the child is not special needs. Child Support covers child care expenses which may or may not, at the judge’s discretion, include educational expenses. Consider this example which is not that unusual.
EXAMPLE 1 – Your child is advanced
Terri and John have a daughter, Samantha, and are divorced. Samantha is exceptionally bright and finished high school at 17 and was accepted to college early. Terri takes John back to court to pay for part of Samantha’s college expenses. John hires a Rhode Island general practitioner who informs him that he is not obligated to pay for his daughter’s college expenses. In the Final Judgment of Divorce, John was ordered to pay half of Samantha’s tuition, books, and extracurricular activities until she was no longer eligible for child support.
At the time of the hearing, John hopes that he will not be ordered to pay anything for Samantha’s college expenses, especially since Samantha’s private high school tuition was about 1/5 the cost of Samantha’s college tuition and he never anticipated that Samantha would be going to college early.
However, after the hearing the judge sees things differently. Since Samantha is still a minor
he is still entitled to alimony and support from his father. Since the court order did not specifically exclude college expenses, the judge finds that they are still included until Samantha is no longer eligible for child support.
EXAMPLE #2 – You agreed with it
Claire and Tim get divorced and have a Marital Settlement Agreement. Both parties had a lawyer and both parties wanted to get a divorce as quickly as possible, so the Marital Settlement Agreement was a bit rushed, although each party had an opportunity to read all the provisions and discuss them with their lawyer.
Claire and Tim have a son, James. James enters university and Claire contributes as much as she can to her university education and approaches Tim to discuss her contribution. Tim is shocked and tells Claire that he can’t afford to contribute to James’ college because he’s about to close on a new house. Claire consults a lawyer who tells Claire that Tim has to contribute whether he likes it or not because he agreed to it in the Marital Settlement Agreement.
Tim consults a lawyer who informs him that it doesn’t matter what is in the Marriage Settlement Agreement because the family court lacks the legal authority to make a parent pay for college costs.
At the hearing, Claire’s attorney argues that Tim agreed to a provision of her Marital Settlement Agreement, and Tim’s attorney argues that the family court lacks the power to compel Tim to pay college costs, and therefore Therefore, the provision of the Spousal Settlement Agreement is not binding. .
The judge takes a direct, common-sense position on the argument. The judge agrees that the family court does not have the power to compel a parent to pay the college costs of a child who does not have special needs and is emancipated. However, the judge finds that, under Rhode Island Statutes, the family court has the power to enforce agreements made between the parties as a result of the divorce and that the terms of such agreements may go beyond what it can be ordered by the family court because the parties are free to contract on the terms they consider appropriate, as long as the court does not consider them unfair.
Therefore, the judge finds that the Marital Settlement Agreement is enforceable as a separate, binding contract and orders Tim to pay half of the expenses as he agreed to in the Marital Settlement Agreement.
