Your SC divorce decree says you'll split college costs. What happens if you don't?
Many Mount Pleasant and Charleston-area parents signed marital settlement agreements years ago that include a promise to share their children's college expenses. When one parent later refuses to pay, the other is left carrying tuition bills they never agreed to absorb alone. A South Carolina Court of Appeals decision filed in March 2026 — Fennell v. Fennell — shows how the family court enforces those promises, and where the fight usually is.
Short answer: If your divorce decree requires you to pay a share of your child's college expenses, the family court can find you in willful contempt for refusing, order you to reimburse the other parent, and shift their attorney's fees to you. The argument that actually decides these cases is narrower than most people expect: what exactly does the clause say?
What Fennell v. Fennell decided
The parties divorced in 2010. The family court approved their marital settlement agreement and incorporated it into the divorce decree. Its “College Expenses” provision read:
[B]oth parties agree[d] to contribute equally to the tuition and other expenses necessary for the Children to pursue a college education.
When Father stopped paying his half of Daughter's costs, Mother filed a petition for a rule to show cause. The family court found he had willfully violated the decree, ordered him to pay $5,481.00 for one semester and $5,485.67 for a second, and awarded Mother $3,205.27 in attorney's fees because she had been forced to litigate to make him comply.
Father appealed, arguing the college-expense language was ambiguous, that there had been no meeting of the minds, and that his failure to pay was not willful. The Court of Appeals rejected each argument and affirmed. It held the provision “clearly and unambiguously required Father to pay 50% towards Daughter's college tuition and other expenses,” and that “Father willfully violated the Divorce Decree.”
The part of Fennell most people miss
Both parents handled the appeal themselves, without lawyers. That matters, because Father raised two further defences — that performance was impossible, and that Mother came to court with unclean hands — and the Court of Appeals never reached either one. It held they were not preserved for appellate review, because they had not been raised to and ruled on by the family court below.
Those may or may not have been winning arguments. Nobody will ever know. They were lost on the way to the courthouse, not in it — which is the most practical thing this case has to teach.
Why the wording of your clause decides the case
South Carolina family courts read marital settlement agreements using ordinary contract principles. Where the words are clear, the court interprets them and gives them effect, and it has no authority to modify terms that are clear and unambiguous on their face.
But “clear” is doing real work in that sentence, and it is not a formality. Compare Fennell with McDuffie v. McDuffie, 313 S.C. 397, 438 S.E.2d 239 (1993). There the husband had agreed to pay “all expenses associated with” his children's college education. The family court read that as plain and unambiguous and ordered him to pay transportation, incidentals and $400 a month in spending money. The Supreme Court said that was error:
We find the words “all college expenses,” without more, patently ambiguous.
Once a clause is ambiguous, the court may look outside the document — at what the parties actually intended — rather than simply enforcing it as written. That is a different, longer and less predictable fight.
So the two cases together give parents on both sides the real lesson. “Contribute equally to the tuition and other expenses necessary” told a court exactly what to do. “All college expenses,” standing alone, did not. If you are negotiating one of these clauses now, that difference is worth more than any argument you can make later.
What makes a failure to pay “willful”
South Carolina defines the word narrowly, and the definition is more demanding than “he didn't pay.” In Eaddy v. Oliver, 345 S.C. 39, 545 S.E.2d 830 (Ct. App. 2001), the Court of Appeals put it this way:
An act is willful if done voluntarily and intentionally with the specific intent to do something the law forbids, or with the specific intent to fail to do something the law requires to be done; that is to say, with bad purpose either to disobey or disregard the law.
Eaddy also sets out how the proof moves. Once the parent bringing the action makes a prima facie showing — by pleading the order and demonstrating noncompliance — “the burden shifts to the respondent to establish his defense and inability to comply.” In practice that means the parent who is owed money does not have to prove the other one could afford it. The parent who did not pay has to explain why.
What happens if you genuinely cannot pay
This is where the law is more forgiving than the internet suggests, and more demanding than a defaulting parent might hope. Hicks v. Hicks, 280 S.C. 378, 312 S.E.2d 598 (Ct. App. 1984), sets out both halves:
[W]here a contemnor is unable, without fault on his part, to obey an order of the court, he is not to be held in contempt.
The Court of Appeals added that “[a] determination of contempt should be imposed sparingly and within the sound discretion of the trial judge.” And it applied that seriously: it reversed a contempt finding covering a period when Hicks was unemployed and “actively sought employment.”
Then it went the other way on the second finding. By that point he had a net income, was living rent-free, and had simply carried on paying the old, lower figure in disregard of the new order. The court found “no effort whatsoever to fully comply” and upheld the contempt. It also declined to forgive the arrears that had built up while he was out of work.
Read together: real inability, through no fault of your own, is a defence. Partial inability paired with no effort to comply is not. And either way, the arrears do not disappear.
What the court can do about it
If a parent is found in willful contempt, the family court has a range of tools. It can order reimbursement of what was not paid, set conditions the parent must meet to clear the contempt, award the other side's attorney's fees, and impose sanctions where the conduct warrants them. Civil contempt is designed to compel compliance rather than to punish: the parent found in contempt can usually end it by doing what the order required.
For how these proceedings unfold in practice — including in Charleston County family court at 100 Broad Street — see our post on enforcing settlement agreements through contempt.
Compensatory contempt and attorney's fees
South Carolina recognises “compensatory contempt.” Where a parent has to go to court to enforce an order that already exists, the court can require the non-complying party to reimburse the costs of doing so, including reasonable attorney's fees. It is remedial rather than punitive — the point is to put the complaining party back where they would have been.
That is why Mother recovered $3,205.27 in Fennell. She had not asked for anything new; she had asked for what the decree already said. The longer a parent stalls, the larger that exposure grows.
What parents on both sides should do now
If you are owed money under a decree — college expenses, child support arrears, alimony, a property buy-out — keep the records that prove it: itemised tuition bills, payment records, and written demands. Check, too, that the obligation is actually in a court order. An agreement the family court approved and incorporated into your decree is enforceable by contempt. A promise that was never made part of an order is a contract question, and a different court may be the right place for it.
If you are the one who cannot keep up, do not wait to be brought in. Ask about a modification if one is available, or negotiate a written amendment signed by both parties. Informal workarounds tend to fail in family court — see our post on why direct child support payments outside the order don't count. The same logic applies to a college-expense obligation.
Frequently asked questions
Does South Carolina require parents to pay for a child's college?
Sometimes, and not only where you agreed to. In McLeod v. Starnes, 396 S.C. 647, 723 S.E.2d 198 (2012), the Supreme Court overruled Webb v. Sowell and held that ordering a parent to contribute to a child's college expenses does not violate equal protection. Courts approach that power narrowly and weigh a defined set of factors. Fennell did not involve it at all — there the obligation came from the parents' own agreement, which the court had approved and made part of the decree.
My agreement says we'll split college costs. Is that automatically enforceable by contempt?
Only if it is in a court order. Where the family court approved the agreement and incorporated it into the decree, as in Fennell, it is enforced like any other term of that decree. Where a promise kept its purely contractual character and never became part of an order, enforcement is a contract matter and the family court may not be the right forum. It is worth checking which one you have before filing anything.
What if I honestly cannot afford it?
Inability to pay, without fault on your part, is a defence to contempt — Hicks is the case. But it has to be real and it has to be shown. A parent who could pay something and paid nothing, or who ignored a new order and carried on at the old figure, is unlikely to persuade a judge. And the arrears remain owed whatever the court decides about contempt.
Can the court make me pay my ex's attorney's fees on top of what I owe?
Yes. Under compensatory contempt, South Carolina courts regularly shift fees where a party had to litigate to enforce an order that already existed. Fennell affirms exactly that.
My settlement agreement is old. Doesn't that help?
Not by itself. In Fennell the agreement dated from 2010 and the tuition bills arrived more than a decade later. A clear promise still means what it said when it was written. Age changes the evidence you can produce, not the obligation.
Talk to Klok Law about enforcing — or defending — a family court order
Klok Law Firm handles family court enforcement, contempt defence, and settlement-agreement interpretation for clients in Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Berkeley, and Dorchester counties. Call Klok Law at (843) 701-1695 to discuss your options.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. For advice about your specific situation, contact Klok Law at (843) 701-1695.