Advice...LONG!

First, let me start off by saying that I often see a lot of good advice offered on here on a wide variety of subjects.

I will do my best to explain.

So, I got sucked into attending a "technical" institute of sorts..think along the lines of Ross Medical, I.T.T. Tech, etc. It's a 9 month program for Medical Assistant/Phlebotomy Techinican/etc. When I applied, I was just basically looking for a quick way out of waiting tables.. I've been doing that for 5 years and it has pretty much run its course for me. Here's the kicker with this school... the program is $15,500. That's a LOT OF freaking money for a 9 month program. I obviously wasn't thinking clearly and didn't want anyone to try and deter me from making this choice. My boyfriend was with me every step of the application process (literally - he went to every appt with me) but was kind of hinting to me that things might end up going sour with this place.

When I started the financial aid process, I was told since I'm 23 years old I am still considered a dependent of my parent's. Mind you, I moved out a week before I turned 18 and have since then been on my own. Of course that's neither here nor there in the financial aid process. It is what it is. So, since I couldn't take out a loan in my name, it had to be through one of my parent's. I did get approved for a $5,500 pell grant but that was only because they referred to my mom's income versus my dad's. My mom lives out of state and they argued that since my dad and I are technically closer (since we live in the same town), that I would have to use my dad's income when applying for the pell...well, initially we used my dad's and I was denied because his income was too high. They finally said I could use my mom's income (doesn't really make sense why I couldn't in the first place) and all was well.

Fast forward to the loan issue... so, I had to take a loan out in my mom's name. First of all, asking my mom to take out a $4,500 loan for me was kind of a big deal. I had to do some convincing that it would get paid, etc. etc. She agreed to it and the process began. A LOT of work went into this process because since she does live out of state, there was a ton of phone conversations between her and financial aid, a lot of e-mail and fax correspondence, etc. It wasn't easy for anyone. We did end up getting approved, I started school, and that's the last I heard. I should probably add that the remainder of the tuition was a loan through the government (subsidized/unsubsidized).

Fast forward to today, roughly 5 months later since I applied. I was called into the office at school because I need to sign a loan change paper. Come to find out, the parent plus loan that was in my mom's name THAT WAS APPROVED actually never got approved. Someone who no longer works for the school made the mistake. On top of them waiting this long to tell me, I was also informed now I would have $9,000+ worth of loans in my name and I would have to make a payment of $500 to the school before my term ends (so basically before I graduate in April). I think the $500 is a difference somewhere in the loan process but my head was spinning with this information that everything she said after that was kind of a blur. Apparently when they found out the loan was never approved, they ran my mom's credit a SECOND time to see if she would get approved and it was denied. Pretty odd considering she was originally "approved" and has pretty good credit. Is it even legal to run someone's credit more than once without their permission? That's something I'm really curious about because she was never informed of ANY of this until I called her tonight.

So, if you were in my shoes, what would you do? I'm completely torn right now because I could potentially lose out on a ton of money. Sorry this was so long winded!