Tom McCutcheon – Attorney at Law
On Friday, October 4, 2013, the Alabama Supreme Court changed the law in the State of Alabama and ruled that a parent cannot be compelled to pay for a child’s education after that child reaches 19 years of age.
When I first read the opinion in Ex parte Christopher my first reaction was that this was a bad decision in that we will now have fewer kids going to college. Alabama needs all of the college graduates it can get. On the other hand this ruling changes certain family dynamics. Here is what happened.
Back in 1989 a case came out of Mountain Brook Alabama where a couple had gotten divorced and the wife and child had been kind of snotty to the dad who earned $370,000.00 a year. He declined to pay for his son’s education but the Court held that he had to pay and that changed the law in Alabama for the next 25 years. It was a departure from the common law that one adult would have to pay for another adult’s education and in Alabama people become adults at the age of 19. If that age were 21 there would be no problem with the Court ordering parents to contribute to a child’s educational costs up to their 21st birthday but in Alabama it is age 19. Therefore the Court ruled and probably rightfully so, that it is unconstitutional to force one adult to pay for another adult’s educational costs.
You need to know that the Court decided to apply this law prospectively, that is to all future cases. If your divorce decree has become final and it sets out a division of costs, I don’t know that that can be changed. If your divorce decree either does not address costs for college expenses or merely reserves this issue for the future, then you will not and cannot be made to pay for a child’s college education beyond the age of 19.
If you would like to read the opinion, I have uploaded the full text in a link on our Facebook page.
Buckle up and drive safely.
