My roommate wants me to pay his share of the rent this summer?

If your original agreement was to split the rent and you both signed the lease agreement than he should be responsible to pay his part. Do his parents know he signed the lease? It could be that he is not telling his parents the entire story. The correct thing for him to do is to pay his 1/2.

He should pay if he wants to continue to live there in the fall. He or his parents can't expect you to shell out the entire rent. If his name is on the lease, then he is responsible for his half.

He needs to pay the rent like he agreed to in the lease.

He does have a point, that if you are staying in the apartment and he isn't for the summer than you should pay the rent. However, the 2 of you should have thought of this before you signed the lease. Now, legally, you both are responsible for the entire rent each month. If you had an agreement to split the rent, he needs to come up with the rent. If not, tell him, fine, but then don't expect to be able to stay there during the school year. then get a new roommate and have the landlord do a new contract.

YOU now know how irresponsible, untrustworthy and naive about business agreements your roommate is...the decision you have to make is this the type of person you want to be financially coupled to... His parents aren't of your concern let him deal with them. He signed the lease to have the apartment available to him. Whether or not he stays there is his decision. He is still responsible for the rent payment.

He still has to pay his share of the rent even if he doesn't live there. He signed a lease for that period of time, so he is stuck. What if you didn't live there this summer too? Does he believe that nobody should be paying the landlord rent in that case? He is about to get a leason in how life works. If he won't pay, sue him in court. A judge will order him to pay. In college, only 1 or 2 people would stay in a 4 bedroom apartment we all rented, but the people that didn't live there still paid their share of the rent, cable, and a small electric (some electricity is still used even if nobody is there, fridge, stove, etc.). So, he needs to pay up, or you need to find another roommate. WIll he allow you to sublease his room to someone else this summer?

Hell no don't pay his side of the rent. He signed the lease for June 1st so that's when he needs to start paying. If he can't hold his end of the bargain then he never should have signed with you. He could always find a sublease to rent the place while he is gone for the summer to take care of his share of the rent. But in no way are you obligated or should you pay for his part of the lease, that's unfair and selfish of him to ask you to do that. His parents are retards too if they think you should pay that they should have told their kid not to sign if they knew he wasn't going to be there.