<p>Some of these messages sound so rude. You’re right, if a person owes money then they need to pay that money. Yes, when you don’t pay for a car they repossess it, but in most states it requires an issue of replevin and process serving. Unlike cars or houses there is not a period of loss of payment allowed between receiving the good and refusing use of the good with colleges, nor is there a court where you can claim unfair holds. From experience, when you repossess a car in states which require court orders (most states) it takes months to put together the necessary paperwork, months of non payment, and if you just give the creditor a little payment, you can reset that process. In states that require repossession you still have thirty days after payment due before we could repossess.<br>
Colleges are allowed to go way too far in collection of debt. Imagine if you just bought a car and someone walked out and said you can’t use the car until you finish paying of the bank. So you can’t drive the car until 5 years from now. That’s realistically what colleges are doing, they don’t give you any amount of time between gaining the credentials and forcing you to pay debt that as many on this website and other sites can attest may not even be real debt. I’ve had thousands of dollars attached to my account that turned out to be false debt or old paid off debt.
This happens all the time, and colleges are allowed to use debt to keep a stranglehold on your transcripts even if you don’t owe money, just the suggestion of owing. I once had to fly to my college to pay off a 15 dollar parking ticket I wasn’t aware I had, to get my transcripts and then fly to my future job and hand deliver, because the college didn’t tell me they refused to send my transcripts until the deadline day. Three months later when I get the receipt I find out it wasn’t my ticket, they had the wrong License plate number. Yeah they offered to reimburse me for the ticket but refused to pay the costs I incurred because their system is irresponsibly managed.<br>
If you owe debt and make regular payments you shouldn’t be subject to unjust collection practices, unfair liens against your education, or in the case of transcripts, prevention of future education plans based on you still owing a few hundred dollars. You aren’t allowed to foreclose on a house or repossess a car without payment refusal. That is not allowed in process serving but it is in education collections. Not only that, colleges are allowed to sell you lemons and you cannot return the degree and get reimbursed. How many people have I met who have complained their degree made no attempt to prepare them for their future employment even though that is the purpose of the degree? Ideally every student should pay off their debts before they continue their education, but you cannot control for incidental costs that a student may incur their final year in school before they apply for grad school, nor the problems with covering debt payment once school ends. And yes, schools should waive these requirements if the student is in a field that requires a graduate degree to pursue their career path. The degree is not a significant item in itself without its purpose which is to provide training for a future job, or graduate school. If the collection process prevents obtaining that goal then it not only prevents proper usage of the degree, but it also waylays its own eventual debt collection. In most states when a business provides a service but sets up significant barriers to properly use that service lemon laws are created to recover payments you have made. When colleges are willing to reimburse students for bad education, then I can see withholding transcripts because of payment failure.<br>
That said, you cannot, with most universities, get official transcripts without paying off debt. Some universities have learned to be more sensible or state laws have been enacted and they can be forced to send official transcripts to employers. However trying to transfer between schools, or trying to go to graduate school (often a necessity with certain bachelor degrees) they can refuse. You can call the university and plead your case. The best chances lay in your continuous payment of money, sending monthly payments even when they don’t do monthly billing. Universities are more willing to negotiate with students who continue to pay off their debt, even if not completely paid. You can also call the university to find out if they have set methods to receive one transcript. Many universities will accommodate a student if you pay off a ¼ or ½ of their bill, but then each transcript requires a portion of the bill to be paid. If your university is a diploma mill, or a state college with money troubles, the likelihood of them allowing a temporary relief of this hold is unlikely. Prestigious private schools are more likely to provide some relief, perhaps because they understand the purpose of transcripts, perhaps because based on 2010 numbers, private schools collect outstanding debt three times as fast as their public counterparts and their students will receive as much as a 10% increase in pay differential over a lifetime of earnings making it easier for them to have jobs to pay outstanding debt.</p>
<p>Hi i had to leave my recent university Uis due to financial hardship .My financial aid didnt cover majority of my tuition most of my time spent at the school the financial aid office took forever to process my info . My dad had just got divorced and he wasnt going to help pay for my school simply because he didnt have the $.Iwas there for 3 months and had to drop all my classes .This was the worst decision ever because i want ready to go but my family was ready to kick me out and i really had no place to go originally i wanted to go online but i had nowhere to live and my major was hands on .in total i owe the school $7682 its ridiculous i would have left as soon as i got there if i had known this would have happened my dad tried to get a parent plus loan but got denied .So now they are threatening to send the debt to an outside agency. im still a freshman and i just want to go back to school because its difficult only having one parent living and hes making too much but wont support you because he feels youre grown now , its irritating and stressful because ill have to spend the 5 years trying to pay this balance not to mention the loans that i have deferred because im unemployed.Im thinking of filing bankrupt but either way im screwed.</p>
<p>@Jaleah92, the best advice I can give you is to work harder at finding a job. There has got to be some job out there you can take until you find another job you like better or that pays more. If the school housed you are taught you even one day in some classes, then you have to pay for the services they did give you…sorry. If you work even part time, you should be able to pay back what you owe within a year or so, and then you can reconsider school. You will be older, wiser, and understand more about money too. I am sorry your dad is unwilling to help you. Do you have any extended family who may be able to help, or at least be a little smarter and able to help you work out a reasonable plan of how to help yourself? Live at home, or get a room at a Y or something, work like crazy, and things will improve. You won’t be able to file backruptcy to get rid of education loans - they don’t go away like that…Didn’t the school have you go through counseling when you signed to take the loans? First things first…go to a local grocery store, or mall, or whereever, pound the pavement and find a job where you can start on Monday. Don’t be choosy, just find a job you can get and keep it.</p>
<p>I’ve read most of the posts and I agree with the fact that school is expensive and that we should pay for the time and resources we are given while in school. I ask is bankruptcy chapter 7 filing my only option because I have 49 undergraduate credits at UIUC that are on a financial hold. I would pay if I had the money but I REFUSE TO PAY. Reason why: I did not even attend that semester. I somehow got charged for three credit hours that never got erased or canceled. I even called the semester of a few times just to make sure that my loans were returned and that I wouldn’t have any charges remaining. I made sure that I had canceled my classes before the deadline date. Yet, because the school somehow messed up and charged me I’m paying because I cannot transfer my credits. I left school on a medical withdrawal and have a ton of medical bills. So again, is bankruptcy my only option? That means I better file real soon if I want to continue with my education this Fall. I’m hoping that some of my student loans like my private ones will get accepted. I can hope for a miracle.</p>
<p>@S6kpIL85, if you owe student loans, bankruptcy won’t remove them. If you just owe the school, then bankruptcy is an option. But don’t jump headlong into bankruptcy. It will remove the bill, but it won’t necessarily require the school to release your credits. AND it will ruin your credit for quite a long time.</p>
<p>I understand about medical bills <em>hugs</em> but if you can avoid bankruptcy, you really need to. (BTDT have the t-shirt)</p>
<p>I suggest you pursue the issue with someone higher up at the university to resolve the problem. In my experience, sometimes just moving up the ladder can make a difference.</p>
<p>About 10 years ago, I enrolled in school and right as the semester began, I was hospitalized for three weeks. It was a very traumatic time. When I was released the last thing on my mind was school and, honestly, I didn’t even remember that I was enrolled. I never went back to school. Years later, I try to get my transcripts and turns out I owe $3500 tuition for those classes I never attended. I understand, yes, I should’ve dropped the classes, blah blah. But I was kind of preoccupied, you know, with my debilitating health issues and all. There should be some kind of exception for things like this, medical waiver or something. It’s hard enough to go to school without the schools themselves making it more difficult.</p>
<p>College is expensive. Health care costs can be staggeringly so. I’m sorry. Sometimes life just isn’t fair. Unfortunately, this is the situation you have to deal with.</p>
<p>So – throw yourself into paying off what you owe. Live as cheaply as possible. Live with your parents or several roommates. Don’t subscribe to pay TV, don’t go out to eat, get the cheapest phone possible (no plan, just a pre-pay phone card) and don’t talk on it much. If you need clothes for a job, buy them at thrift stores (preferably near upscale neighborhoods). Read one (or all three) of Amy Dacyczyn’s Tightwad Gazette books for suggestions. Some financial counselors offer free counseling to help people get out of debt.</p>
<p>As long as you are fairly healthy and don’t have any huge medical costs, you should be able to do it. Good luck!</p>
<p>Yoshigrll, There are medical waivers available but you have to apply at that time. It’s extremely doubtful you can get one retroactively. Schools will usually work with you if you bring these things up in a timely manner.</p>
<p>I don’t think that them asking you to pay the full 9 grand back in full is fair. What about a payment plan? Have you talked to them about that? I would think that if you could get them to agree to a payment plan then they would release the transcripts. </p>
<p>I have heard of things like this happening before and it is just a senseless way to do business on the schools side. Really, don’t they get that the student will not be able to finish their education without those transcripts? If they are not able to finish then they will not be able to get to the point in their education where the wonderful job awaits. That is the idea behind spending all that money on an education right??</p>
<p>I would recommend using every trick that you can to try and get transferred. Talk to counselors at the both schools. Ask each one if they know anyone at the other school. Haunt the advising and counseling office if you can. Bring flowers and chocolate and beg for help. It is amazing the things that these advisers are capable of. They are the ones that will know all the ins and outs without a doubt.</p>
<p>Sunnysally, you are answering the OP who asked that question 3 years ago and is probably long gone. More recent posts with different questions pulled this thread up.</p>
<p>My story happens to be bit twisted; I attended a private school about a year ago. I had a remaining 5 credits in order to graduate with an AOS and move on. I had already been put into the system for one last semester and the classes were set in stone.
But of course there was one problem, MONEY! i had found out a week before school was to begin I owed about 5000 and that my current status as a dependent student had now changed to independent. And to top it off, my so called finical aid adviser wasn’t the one to dish this out, I had found this out by the busar. (I had just seen my finical aid adviser to fill out a new dependent form for the year).
Naturally I was *<strong><em>ed and immediatly sought for legal action. This school had done things like this before, waiting to the last minute to tell me all the details, even though I asked the right questions and always stayed on top of my money, so I thought.
As i fought, once again I received a letter from the schools finical department , that I had a bill due of 16,000. And was told in order to graduate I had to pay. I went from owing just 5,000 which, was do able to 16,000 which was not. I called home to see if anybody could sign a loan with me, but of course no one could because of there own expensives from their schooling and such.
I went to the director of finical aid to see where this 16,000 was coming from, and to my surprise, I had lost just about every cent I was getting from FAFSA (grants and such) and the school took a grant from me and a scholarship because it was only for the previous years cost and I never said anything to the regard that I would need it again and that also I was to send a new pitch for my situation.
It was a very rough depressing 3 weeks. And after a while i just couldn’t fight with thm anymore. No one, not even student advising would help me, justify to finical aid that all I needed was 5 credits to graduate. Furthermore, I was put in limbo because I am still not sure why all the money I had just disappered.
To this day I HATE that school and wont pay a dime to them (which is wrong). But I do only work part of a part time job, all me loans except one are deferred (the one thats not deferred has been sent to collections). I barley make enough to live on which, is why i haven’t been paying it.
I fully withdrew from the school and every now and then they send me my bill. And every time I look at it I’m so confused, angry, and *</em></strong>ED beyond ****ed!!! </p>
<p>I guess what I am trying to ask for is advice, I’ve been home for a year now and I want to transfer. I’ve been in limbo because no one can seem to give me any helpful advice or something new, that I haven’t heard before.
Has anyone else been in this position before? I mean the school never told me anything until the last minute and I was screwed!!! And this went on every semester I was there. I never did want to transfer because I really enjoyed the cirriculum but, I’m starting to see that it was a mistake!
HELP!!!</p>
<p>Im confused why would they expect you to pay for an education that you did not receive? You could not take the classes so they did not fufill their end of the bargain. No classes=No money. They should have told you much sooner what your financial situation was. My school did this to me and I took legal action. You need to show proof that they told you late, proof that your financial situation changed and were unable to pay. If you can not afford mcdoanlds they dont take half your money and tell you to get more. They say your short and send you away. The same applys for college. If you cant afford to go there and clearly they knew because they have access to your account, then you should have been informed and sent away. Its not as if you took classes then decided not to pay. You did not even get to take the classes. If anything they owe you. Why would they take your the money that you did have? You just paid x amount of dollars for classes never taken. The only thing you should have been charged is a cancellation fee for housing if you lived on campus. Also they set you back an entire year on your studies! Lawsuit! Make sure you have document of who you spoke to and when.</p>