Is it possible to recieve any financial compensation when breaching a private school tuition contract if decision is made prior to the school year?

What does the contract say?  Does it provide any right to cancel, or any refund if you cancel within a certain time period, or anything like that?  If not, you have no right to back out, and if you do are liable for the damages your breach caused the other party.  If this was another type of contract, for example the sale of a car, the seller's damages would be the amount you agreed to pay minus the amount they could sell the car for to another buyer.  Thus, if you had agreed to buy the car for $500, and after you cancelled they sold the car for $400, you would owe damages of $100.  Here, if the school  had reached the limit of how many students it could enroll, and was able to enroll another student to replace the cancellor, the damages might be zero - the school would make as much money anyway.  If, however, there is virtually no limit to the amount of people the school can enroll, so that any student they enroll would not be replacing the cancelling student, you would be responsible for the full amount of the contract.