DENVER — A University of Colorado Denver student says the uis holding her diploma hostage because she refuses to pay for a class she never took.
CU Denver sent Alison McKnight a letter that said she owes $1,301.62 for a philosophy class the 24-year-old dropped at the beginning of the 2014 fall semester.
“I need the diploma and I also need transcripts,” McKnight said. “They’re holding them hostage for this money.”
McKnight admits she missed the deadline to drop the class but insists that’s only because the school refused her request to drop the class. CU Denver said in a letter that McKnight still owed $370 from the previous semester because of issues with her financial aid package.
“They sat on my financial aid for about two months. I had all the paperwork in, they sat on it for two months,” McKnight said.
A letter from her financial aid adviser confirms there was “a hold on her account that among others, prevented her from registering for any classes while her balance went unpaid … because of an error on her FAFSA” (financial aid package).
“Financial aid office was not communicating with other offices even in the same building,” complained McKnight.
A letter from the university’s debt counselor states that besides the $1,301.62, McKnight owes a one-time collection fee of 20 percent of the principal balance, plus 21 percent interest.
“I do not have money. I have always been from a poorer family and I do not have money at all,” McKnight said.
She said she already carries $75,000 in student debt.
McKnight says asking her to pay another $1,300 simply shuts the door on her future.
“I can’t get into nursing school if I do not have this diploma,” she said.
After FOX31 Denver made inquiries, a CU Denver spokeswoman sent us an email clarifying McKnight was awarded a degree in psychology and the university is willing to mail her transcripts if she applies for nursing school.
But CU Denver is still demanding $607 for her diploma, insisting McKnight is partly to blame for not dropping her philosophy class by the school’s deadline.