Don’t Delay Seeking College Contribution from Your Ex-Spouse

One of the issues typically reserved in contested divorce cases is who will pay the children’s college after they graduate high school.  Typically, most Marital Settlement Agreements will reserve this issue for determination at a later date, primarily because it is difficult to forecast how each party’s financial circumstances will look when the children ultimately attend college.  If the children are quite young, it is even more difficult to predict where each party will be financially and whether college expenses will even be needed based upon the children’s scholastic abilities.

Section 513 of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act allows the Court to allocate expenses between both parents, as well as the child, based upon an examination of factors which include the parties’ financial resources, the standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage not terminated, the child’s financial resources, and the child’s academic prowess.  However, even in situations in which the issue of payment of college expenses has been reserved in a Marital Settlement Agreement, a spouse may wait too long to pursue college contribution from an ex-spouse, because his or her ability seek retroactive contribution to college expenses under Illinois law is limited.

The Illinois Supreme Court recently ruled that a petitioning party cannot obtain contribution from the other spouse for college expenses that were incurred prior to the date the petition was filed, if the Marital Settlement Agreement reserved the issue of how much, if any, each spouse should contribute to the cost of a child’s college education.  In re Marriage of Peterson, 2011 IL 110984.