Good evening,
Before I begin, I’ll preface this with the fact that I’m aware that colleges will not typically release transcripts until the entirety of a debt is paid. I’m also aware that most colleges will not accept a new applicant if all prior transcripts have not been provided by the applicant. I’m reaching out in hopes of finding out a few things.
About two years ago now, I attended Drexel for a semester. Long story short, I was advised to take out a private loan with a bank for the rest of what my aid didn’t cover (with was 13 grand remaining for one semester). I opted not to do that and dropped out (which was past the period of time where I wouldn’t be charged anything for the quarter). I only stayed past that point because it was kept ambiguous how much aid I was getting until the 8th or 9th week of the quarter. I found out that I would basically only get 5k for the year, which translated to about 1.2k a quarter.
Fast forward to now, I’m at a point where I’ve acquired some means to pay some of that debt back, but not all (I’ve acquired a grant that I could use for a little less than half of the debt).I certainly cannot afford to pay an upwards of a few hundred (5 or 600+ to be specific) a month, nor will I be able to for a long time. I would like to hopefully transfer to Temple in the fall.
Now that I’ve gotten all of that context out of the way, I reach out today in hopes of getting a few questions answered.
First, is it possible for me to reach a settlement with Drexel for less than the amount that I originally owed? I’m not expecting to be able to completely absolve my debt, but I would hope that I could reach some agreement that could help me out some for my current financial situation (and again, even after I’ve applied all of the grant I have, I would still be paying an upwards of a few hundred a month which I cannot afford to do at the moment). In addition, I don’t even need the credits that I’ve taken at Drexel. If I am able to reach some sort of agreement, I could pay about 250-300 max a month towards the rest until the effective start of Temple’s fall semester (which gives me about 7 months to work with). I could even pay after (should I be able to get in [which I will elaborate on in my second question]).I just can’t do more than that because I still need money to afford rent and food. Is this at all possible? Are there any cases of anything like this being done before?
Second, would it be possible to be admitted to Temple on a special basis? Should the worst case happen, and I cannot reach any settlement with Drexel, could I be admitted to Temple under the assumption that I will have Drexel’s transcript eventually (one the entire debt has been paid)? If this were to happen, it would take me at least a year after the beginning of the fall semester to pay off the debt completely.
Last, what are the chances of Temple helping me out in this situation? Would they assist me in negotiating with Drexel if I asked? If I were admitted into Temple, I should be able to get sufficient aid to cover everything there, and my GPA is currently a 3.1 (I’ll also have an associates degree from the community college of Philadelphia come summer).
Any answers/ advice would be appreciated. This has already set me back 2 years and I’ve worked hard to get to a point where I could at least tackle this problem. If I don’t absolutely have to, I would like to not be set back another year or 2 because of this debt (I’ll be 26 in a few days btw, in case that needed to be clarified for any reason).