Hello, I am close to finishing an MBA program under my employers Tuition Assistance Policy. In the policy it states that if an employee voluntarily leaves the company within 2 years of completion of an MBA program that they will need to pay back the amount that was given. This of course is called a payback-provision in the policy. In the near future I foresee my family moving across state (Ohio) to allow for my wife to go to Dentistry school, so therefore I will need to leave my current employer before the 2 years is up.
My brother-in-law had a similiar situation and as a part of his negotiations with his new employer they agreed they would pay-off the amount for him. After they looked at his contract they decided that the policy wasnt well written (only a sentence or two) and found that the old company wouldnt have a legal leg to stand on if they simply didnt pay the amount off. So they didnt pay it, and all the old company did was send him a letter saying that he could no longer ever work for them again..
From how he described his old policy "the payback provision was only one sentence", it is VERY similar to the one I have signed now with my current employer.
I know my best option is to work my tuition debt in with negotiations with a new perspective employer, I could do this by moving the balance to the new companies tuition reimbursement program and signing on for X amount of years.. Or another idea I have is that my current employeer made the monumental mistake of extensively training me on critical business system, and not training anyone else. So I would imagine as a second option would be to offer 3-4 months of answering any questions my replacement would have on the new system. My tuition balance will be 10,000 which would be much cheaper for the company to forgive than the 20,000-30,000 they will pay to have consultants train the replacement for a week or two. Plus I really like my current employer and dont want to see them drop loads of money to train someone that I could train much better. So I feel I have some leverage in that way. And finally, following what my brother-in-law did I could possibly just not pay the company.
My question is... do the options that I presented seem logical and probable? And more importantly since my payback-provision in my tuition assistance policy is lacking in scope/definition would this be a way for me to get out of paying back the balance?
If need be, I can provide the exact statment in the pay-back provision if it will assist!
Thank you for your time and help, it is greatly appreciated!

