A thousand dollars is a huge amount of money. I bet you had no problems scaling through the university since you already have finance that is enough to see you through..
I really don't want you to start regretting about the past or your choice of friends in the past. I believe people cross your path for a particular reason and in one way or the other you must have learnt something from them. So use that as a lesson learnt for a better tomorrow.
Thanks for sharing this story with us.. I loved it..