If you’re divorcing here in Michigan, you may have many questions about the amounts that the court could order you to pay as child or spousal support.
One of those questions may deal with whether the full obligation of paying your child’s private school tuition could fall solely on you.
The answer? It depends
As we have earlier established, the family law courts’ decisions are bound by whatever is considered to be in “the best interests of a child.” In some cases, that could indeed be remaining in (or even transferring to) a private school setting.
If your co-parent is barely scraping by financially, the courts may determine that the child support they receive is insufficient to afford private school tuition. If the income disparity is so great between the former spouses, the court could potentially order the parent who pays support to cover the tuition as well.
But that doesn’t seem fair!
You and your attorney will have the chance to present an alternative course of action that doesn’t involve your footing the entire bill alone. But if your child has special needs and that school is presently the only one within your geographic area that can meet those needs, you may just have to bite the bullet and pay up.
Each circumstance is different, so while there are child support guidelines that help judges come to their decisions on family law cases, they should also be able to fairly weigh counterarguments that the financial burden would be too great.
Even if the court initially rules against you, you may still return at a later point after changes occur to petition the court to modify your child support and/or custody agreement for one that’s a better fit.