Past College Contribution Not Allowed
The Illinois Supreme Court has spoken. In a decision released in September 2011, the Supreme Court stopped a county judge from ordering a divorced father to pay the portion of college tuition that was paid by the former wife prior to her filing a motion seeking contribution for such expenses. In the case the father had three sons with his former wife and divorced in 1996. The divorce settlement reserved the issue of college expenses for future consideration which is very common in divorces. The mother in this case asked a Cook County circuit judge to award her past and future college expenses for all three sons. The judge ordered the father to pay 75 percent of the PAST and future college expenses for all three sons, which totaled more than $273,000. The father appealed and the appellate court said the order improperly changed the divorce decree before the date the mother asked for it to be changed so that the father should not be li...