She owes a private school $27,000. Her daughter never attended

washingtonpost.com

12 points·pwthornton··7 comments

Can't really have contracts if someone can just say "I forgot" and get out them, can we.

While that's very true, these contracts are inherently one-sided. One party owes money, which is fungible. The other party owes a time-limited pupil slot of a year of education.

So by delaying enforcement, or notice of intent to enforce, one party can escape any chance of being forced to perform under the contract. The other party has no such option.

It would seem that for actions against students who never actually attend to be enforceable, there would at least be some sort of notice required, along the lines of "hey, you're still on the hook for this tuition no matter what, so here's your last chance to actually have the kid show up".

Then you don't sign them

Yes, we can. Schools should have imposed a deadline for the payment.

Strangling people along while providing no service is a perverted incentive.

So don't sign it?

Do you have a time machine?

Paywall, but the bit I did read seems to suggest that she thought she was going to get financial aid from the government, and the government changed their mind.

There might be some kind of immunity for the government in this case, but if it was a private institution that promised the tuition money, then she would most likely have a valid case against them if she met all of the conditions to receive the promised money.

It's called promisory estoppel:

> If someone took action based on a promise and suffered a loss due to that reliance, they might have a legal claim under the doctrine of promissory estoppel. This allows a person to enforce a promise even without a formal contract, provided certain conditions are met, such as reasonable reliance and resulting harm.

- quote is from AI

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