Do I have any recourse?

Last fall I got my act together and enrolled in community college. I work long hours as a retail manager, but I had a study plan that would work with my schedule.

A few weeks into my semester, my grandmother was hospitalized for several weeks. I spent all my off time driving to another state to pick up a handicapped relative and drive her to the hospital. My workplace guilt tripped me every time I took time off, so I ended up only taking two or three hours off once or twice. My family also guilted me about the fact that I couldn’t take more time off work. With all this stress, I came down with the flu, and then my grandmother died, and then the holiday season started and I worked 6–7 days a week through November and December.

I withdrew from my classes, got through the holiday season, and later that winter went back to the community college to ask if there was anything I could do to enroll again. When you withdraw after a certain date, it counts as an automatic fail. This made my GPA too low to keep my financial aid.

It took a while, but I learned of a debt cancellation policy that the school has if you have a death in the family or other emergency. I filled out the application and sent them my grandmother’s death certificate and waited for an answer.

After you have been out of class for a certain amount of time, student loans come due. That happened while I was waiting for an answer from the college. If you have an outstanding debt with the college, you can’t attend classes there until it’s a zero balance.

In the spring the college finally answered that they can’t cancel the debt because I missed the paperwork deadline. I filed an appeal and explained why I missed the deadline (holiday season retail management, illness, making my grandmother’s funeral arrangements). It took a long time to get an answer back but they denied the appeal for the same reason.

The amount of money in question is $1200. It’s not insurmountable but I don’t just have $1200 lying around. I was really upset because it seemed like paying it back would take me at least six months, which was even more time that I wouldn’t be in school. I asked a lot of different people up there if I could have a payment plan and attend classes while paying regularly, no luck.

More recently, I got approved for a credit card that is enough to cover the $1200. I still don’t have financial aid, but theoretically I could just pay the balance on the credit card, pay for classes myself with cash, and go back in the fall. (And then once I raise my GPA, maybe requalify for financial aid.)

I’m wondering if I should just do that, or continue to pursue this issue. It seems like the school’s bureaucracy itself is really hindering my efforts to get enrolled. I’m pretty good at asking lots of questions, sleuthing around, and advocating for myself, but this whole ordeal has been really discouraging and I’m ready to give up.