I was a student at a Canadian university from 1998-2002, and am now applying to a graduate program at a different university for this fall. I contacted the Student Services Centre at my previous school to requests transcripts for this application.

I was told that I had outstanding fees ($698.81) for three courses I completed in the 2002 winter session. I had received several undergraduate scholarships (including smaller scholarships through the Creative Writing department) that I believed had covered my course fees.

However, for some reason, the outstanding fees for these courses appear in February 2007 (at which time I hadn't even been living in this city for over three years). Then they began to accumulate interest, now to the tune of over $300, with total outstanding fees of over $1000.

The courses as listed are accurate - those are indeed the classes I took in the 2002 winter session - and since it was so long ago, I can't say for certain that I remember the scholarships covering or not covering those fees (though they had for two years prior). My question, however, is if this is the school's error (say, they typed 2007 into their system instead of 2002, when I graduated), is there a statute of limitations on their collecting of these fees? If it's their error, do I have any standing in refusing to pay them?

Of course, if it's their error and you can prove it, the debt is neither legitimate or yours.

My research indicates that student debts are an exception to the Statute of Limitations and they are owed forever. (The Statute on other debts changed in 2002; school debts are an exception.)

The organization administering the scholarship program should have records. Have you inquired there?

So ask for a full accounting of all the charges, and for a list of all scholarships applied.

I would assume you would or should know what or @ what scholarships you received, you should know if it is close to being correct.

If so and you really owe the school, pay them, that is not really hard, you got the education, you felt it was of benefit at the time, and you are even planning on paying more money for more education.