Transferring to a four year university

Hi everyone,

I am currently trying to transfer to a four-year university and am running into a road block. I am 30 years old and when I graduated from High School I started at a local community college. After my first semester my parents lost their business and I had to work full-time to help them get everything back together, I then moved across the country and was not able to finish my second semester. For the next 10 years or so I have worked in business and done OK, but I decided to go back to school a few years ago, so through my work I could attend Strayer. Well, after multiple issues with Strayers financial aid office (losing my packet that I hand delivered to their office), I was told I could not continue classes unless I paid for them, but since my financial aid information was lost, I wasn’t able to get any. So I had to drop from Strayer only a few weeks into starting and then they sent me a bill for $3500, which I fought them over and eventually had it removed from my credit. So fast forward to Jan 2016 and I am back in a community college, they told me I could start all over as a freshman so all my issues from leaving school when I was younger would not be relevant anymore. I am now at 31 credit hours with them, holding a 4.0 GPA, and qualify to transfer to the local four-year university here.

The problem I am running into is that the four-year university wants my transcripts from my current college, my previous college from 11-12 years ago, and Strayer. Most of the credits from my old college I have retaken at my current college, so I am hoping it won’t mess up my GPA too terribly, but Strayer I am stuck on. They lost my paperwork, then blamed me, charged my $3500, then reported it to my credit which all three agencies removed from my credit when I showed them the email strings that it was their fault. But now I know Strayer will not release anything to the four-year university unless I pay them the $3500. Will explaining the situation to an admissions officer at the four-year university help me avoid having to deal with Strayer all together? Or will I have to take Strayer to court over this? Any suggestions?

Thanks for any advice ahead of time.

Talk to admissions, and if not go to court. Hopefully they can ignore it since it was over 10 years ago, but I kinda doubt it.

Thank you for your response, I am heading up there tomorrow to explain the situation and hoping they will just ignore Strayer since I did not even get half way through a semester and have email proof of the mess that Strayer was.