OP- so the key to all of this is finding out if your credits expire in the next year, correct?
Take the overtime.
Tonight- write an email to the registrar of your old university with a cc to the Dean of Students AND the Dean of Financial Aid AND the provost (all of these folks should have their full names and email addresses on the university website) with the following information.
1- Your full name (the one you used to enroll)
2- A very brief summary (three lines) of what happened- you were enrolled from X date to Y date, you had to withdraw for financial reasons, you have Z credits completed towards a degree in psychology.
3- Your plan as of today- finish paying off the loans which went to collections and then enroll to complete your degree.
Ask how much time you have to do this, and ask if they could make an exception to whatever university policy is on the books in order to give you enough time to complete paying down your loan AND come up with enough money to enroll again.
Unless this is a for-profit institution, you will likely find that Deans and Provosts and folks like that have pretty much devoted their careers to helping students get a college education, despite the obstacles.
If you want to post a draft of your email here, the experienced and savvy posters can help you edit it.
If the only obstacle right now is your belief that the credits are going to expire- well, let’s have the CC community help you make that obstacle go away. Once you’ve gotten- in writing- a commitment from the university to keep your transcript and credits alive until you can pay down the debt, you can focus on the best way to quickly get back to college.
No? You are basing this entire emergency on “something you heard”, correct? Did you hear it from the Provost or Dean of students? If not- go to them and clarify. This is a problem with a solution…