Question regarding Transcript being held hostage

[cknapp78]

Hi All,

As many of you suggested, I went ahead and ordered my transcripts from the B&M College I Had attended. Got 2 classes from the local CC. However, about 16 years ago I attended DeVry University. Attended onsite for a semester and then moved to online courses since I traveled a fair amount for work. During my first semester online, I suffered a seizure at work. Long story short, after 2 months of struggling to be diagnosed, I had brain surgery. Fully recovered thank goodness.

Here is the ringer...as part of my issues and troubles, I had to withdraw from school. Wasn't an issue at the time, but apparently now that I had contacted the University, they are telling me that I missed the withdraw cutoff date, and I still owe them over 5000 dollars in back tuition. They will not release a transcript to me or any college otherwise. It has been past the normal 7 year standard for discharging debt so it looks like they are not going to attempt to collect the debt unless I want to get my transcript. So in other words, if you want your grades, pay us.

Hell for 5000 dollars I am just as well off starting over and getting almost 2 BA or BS degrees from TESU. I guess I am just looking for confirmation that I am pursuing the correct path in starting over from scratch. I sure don't have 5000 available right now. Heck, even cobbling together enough money to test out of a degree is tough. Doable, but tough. Anyone have any other ideas, or am I just stuck repeating my classes?

Thanks.