College Tuition Case Study

College Tuition: A Binding Contract?
With the skyrocketing costs of college education — at both state institutions and elite private colleges and universities — the breakdown of cost responsibilities between parents and students is becoming increasingly important, and in certain cases controversial. However, nowhere was it more heated than in a recent case that was resolved by a Connecticut court.
In this case, the plaintiff — a twenty-something female student — sued the defendant (her father) over his failure to pay the final year of her college tuition, despite an explicit contract in which he had stated that he would assume all responsibility for her college. This later contract underscored a previous legally binding agreement that the
Again, as highlighted above, the offer in this particular setting was the provision of tuition and a range of other associated expenses to the daughter. Acceptance occurs when the second party to the contract agrees to the offer. In this particular case, one could argue that acceptance occurred at one of many points during the process. We would suggest that acceptance happened when the student enrolled at Southern Connecticut State University and accepted the father 's payment of tuition during the first three years of her schooling.
Consideration is a third important concept in contract law. In general, consideration references what one party gives to another in exchange for any benefits that he/she may receive. In other words, it is what the parties exchange and the consideration impacts each party 's utility in carrying out their portion of the contract (Lau & Johnson,
Although in many cases agreements with minors are regularly deemed to be invalid, obligations in divorce agreements are regularly upheld. Therefore, one could argue that even if the secondary contract was invalid (due to the daughter 's age) the primary contract (in the legally binding divorce agreement) was valid and needed to be enforced. Clearly, a wide range of family issues and dynamics impacted this case. Given that the disagreement ultimately landed in court, one could surmise that there was an underlying degree of contentious following the divorce. Although contracts and contract laws generally try to strip emotions out of business relationships, it is unrealistic in the real world to expect that contracts between individuals with thoughts and feelings will not have a degree of involved