Any experience of walking away from a school contract?

[Anonymous]

Is it even possible? Or will the school always claw back its money? I just wanted to learn from the experience of people who have actually done so. For other opinions, I prefer to chat with Gemini.

[Anonymous]

I have never heard of anyone successfully not having to pay when doing this.

[Anonymous]

I’ve heard of one getting their money back when the parent had a significant, legitimate issue with the school and the school required the parent to sign a non disclosure/non disparagement agreement in exchange.

[Anonymous]

Do you have tuition insurance?

[Anonymous]

It's getting increasingly unpopular for private schools to sue for tuition. Do it and tell them to sue.

[Anonymous]

If you are able to pull this off, there will be other repercussions. Private schools are a small world. And this information might be shared more broadly than you might think or wish,

[Anonymous]

Assuming you signed a contract, what’s the context of the prospective breach?

[Anonymous]

I think the only way out without financial penalty would be due to moving out of area for a job, loss of job, medical reason, etc. But if you just want to attend a different school, then you are still on the hook.

[Anonymous]

You sound like a peach, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have tuition insurance?

Tuition insurance typically only kicks in after the student has attended for a certain period of time, like 2 weeks. Next year’s insurance wouldn’t help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's getting increasingly unpopular for private schools to sue for tuition. Do it and tell them to sue.

This is not true.

[Anonymous]

We left a school midyear and did have to pay the balance of the tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound like a peach, OP.

You clearly didn’t read the OP. No irrelevant posts, please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound like a peach, OP.

You clearly didn’t read the OP. No irrelevant posts, please.

NP.

The OP used the term “claw back” its money, which is going to get some comments. Let’s be real here.

Schools rely on people honoring contracts. Tuition money pays for the teachers they hire, etc. So yes, they have every reason to “claw back” their money because they made promises to others through teacher contracts, etc, and they need to be able to pay for it.

So if you back out, you are hurting the school. So yes, they can “claw back” their money.

I had a good friend who did this last year. She had to honor the tuition, even though she pulled her child.

[Anonymous]

Imagine putting your signature on a contract and being expected to live up to the obligations therein. What has this world come to?
If one school or several schools had the reputation of not holding people to their contracts, admissions would become so chaotic. People would then wonder, “do any of the schools’ rules really matter?” And the school from which you want to withdraw really couldn’t care less that you have suddenly been accepted to the school that you actually like more. So using their attorneys to pursue the tuition dollars really is no trouble for them. They just go on running their school, while the attorneys do their jobs, and you fret over a lawsuit.