So I am a student athlete and to make a long story short, I got offered to be a walk on at this school since I wanted to leave my JC early. They told me that if I came there that I would be able to earn a scholarship and probably play in games if I performed good enough. I went there practiced all season and when it was time to earn a scholarship these guys weren't responding to text, phone calls, anything. I really like the school and had felt that I played really well, so I went back to school that following semester and tried hunting them down personally. To make a short story shorter, after a month of tracking the coaches down, they told me I couldn't get a scholarship and they wanted me to play the in fall. I had to leave and now I'm stuck with my schools tuition. I never took out a loan and they gave my dept to the Collections agency. This would not be a problem, but I have another opportunity to play for a school this summer (and I will sign the scholarship papers before I go) and I need my Official transcripts to transfer. They bumped the money up damn near 5,000 dollars and I cannot and Do not want to pay that.

My mother told me to ask them for a settlement, but I have some anxiety about it.

If you've ever settled with a collections agency can you tell me how it went? How did you go about it? What did you say? Did it work? What should I do and how much should I ask to settle for?

My fee is $17,000 and the original cost of tuition was $11/12,000.

I only paid $500 recently.

Thank you!