University withholding transcript

[quigongene]

The person in post #13 said they didn't check his during enrollment.

Just saying that was likely a one-off.

[Kate5555]

Wow- I've been lurking for a week now and did not know any of this. I still owe thousands for undergrad. And I was thinking of just getting another one bc might be cheaper in order to do a wgu mba. Looks like I'll need to rethink the strategy. That's okay. Goals are good for me. Challenge accepted.

[sanantone]

Wow- I've been lurking for a week now and did not know any of this. I still owe thousands for undergrad. And I was thinking of just getting another one bc might be cheaper in order to do a wgu mba. Looks like I'll need to rethink the strategy. That's okay. Goals are good for me. Challenge accepted.

Do you owe money to the school or money for student loans? If you owe for student loans, then you aren't in debt to the school, and they will release your transcript.

[davewill]

Wow- I've been lurking for a week now and did not know any of this. I still owe thousands for undergrad. And I was thinking of just getting another one bc might be cheaper in order to do a wgu mba. Looks like I'll need to rethink the strategy. That's okay. Goals are good for me. Challenge accepted.

Do you owe money to the school or money for student loans? If you owe for student loans, then you aren't in debt to the school, and they will release your transcript.

Yes, this is getting a bit conflated in this thread. The OP is in debt to the school, that's why they won't release their transcripts. As Sanantone stated above, that can happen when aid is revoked. It can also happen when the student has ancillary fees like parking tickets or library fines that they haven't paid. In normal cases, you can't get in debt to the school for tuition as the school will drop the student (either before or very shortly after the term starts) if they aren't paid up front.

Owing on student loans, or even defaulting on them, doesn't create a problem with transcripts, as the money is owed to the lender, not the school.

[bjcheung77]

ImAllLikeYouWannaDoWat - Get a loan that you can pay off monthly and stick to it for the next two years or so, do a 24 month or 36 month loan. Do not declare bankruptcy on such a nominal amount, if it was $600,000 that you owe for a purchase of a house or something, then you may consider that as an option.

Anyways, I also recommend getting the free legal advice option and see if they can drop that $6000 to $3000 or something you can manage. Speak with the school/creditors and work something out, they won't say no to any cash you give them, it's better than receiving nothing on their end...

BTW, I was in a similar situation, I owed $12,000 and was able to negotiate it down to a manageable amount. This was about 2 decades or so ago, I shouldn't have paid the school as this was when I was going to a private school that wasn't RA/NA and doesn't use the National Clearing House. But because you're thinking of the Big 3 or WGU, do it, get the loan and pay monthly.

[davewill]

... I shouldn't have paid the school as this was when I was going to a private school that wasn't RA/NA and doesn't use the National Clearing House.  ...

Unless, of course, you believe in paying your debts as a matter of principle.

[bjcheung77]

Yes, you are correct, and that is the reason I paid them. I have no debts and I don't like owing anyone...
Update, oh wait, I do have debts, on the credit cards that regularly pay monthly and of course, the dreaded mortgage...

[TrailRunr]

To declare bankruptcy on $6,000 is insane.  That's just about the worst idea I've heard on this forum.  OP, please don't listen to nonsense like this, there are better ways to handle this.

LEARN TO READ! Apparently you failed English comp because my caveat was in the very first sentence.. You can agree to disagree but this was insulting. You'd only do this if you were going to declare BK anyway on your other large consumer debt that was discharged.

**** You cannot clear this $6k debt with bankruptcy because it's non-dischargable student debt. Nobody declares bankruptcy on just student debt because none of it is dischargable. Another failure to read. ****

It's a perfectly fine strategy if you were going to declare BK anyway because you had another 100k in consumer debt.  If OP stiffed this school, he/she may have stiffed many others and might have been considering BK anyway.

[ImAllLikeYouWannaDoWat]

Using a financial aid refund check clearly would be the best option but would I be able to get into tesu and get financial aid without first submitting my transcripts? I tried to get into my local community college and they required all of my transcripts before I could get in. I'm hoping tesu would allow this. If not tesu are there any universities any of you know of that would accept me without transcripts initially and then I could just use the refund check to pay the debt.

[davewill]

Using a financial aid refund check clearly would be the best option but would I be able to get into tesu and get financial aid without first submitting my transcripts? I tried to get into my local community college and they required all of my transcripts before I could get in. I'm hoping tesu would allow this. If not tesu are there any universities any of you know of that would accept me without transcripts initially and then I could just use the refund check to pay the debt.

You can get into TESU and start courses without all of your transcripts, but I don't know about financial aid. The bigger problem is that with TESU tuition rates, there there may not be much in the way of leftover aid coming your way. You might have better luck with New Mexico Junior College. A lot of people use their aid at a cheaper school like that with gives them leftover aid to use for cheap alternative credit (or in your case the old debt).