My question involves collection proceedings in the State of: Texas

I attended a university in 2009. While there I thought that my student loans covered all of my tuition. However, when I tried to go back to school (winter semester of 2013) I found my transcripts on hold because of an outstanding balance. Upon finding this out I went to the bursar's office at the university. We looked up my records and found that my student loans fell short of covering all of my tuition. We also found that the university only tried to contact me once to let me know before sending me to collections. Now, that attempt was to my university email address, and at the time they sent it I was no longer a student there (so I obviously never received it). My questions is are they allowed to send me to collections without ever trying to notify me that I owe money. I am okay with paying off what I rightfully owe them but I feel it is unfair to charge me an overwhelming large amount of late fees (almost $1000).

Thanks in advance for any help