I see it as half this thread is all like "Yeah, tell his parents! That'll show him! Haha, we're all both fair and appropriately nasty and putting a poor misunderstood kid back on track."
This sounds like exactly what the scammer wanted to manipulate everybody into thinking.
To me, the scammer's message stinks to high heaven. I translate "Oh noes, I'm just a poor college kid, I'm so totally having panic attacks over this, pretty please don't ever tell my parents!" to "These guys aren't hardcore enough to want to get me in real trouble. If I just beg a little, pretend to panic, and pretend to be afraid of my parents, they'll exercise their sense of justice by telling them, and I'll slide for this one too."
IMO, a lot of people here are very sheltered and have never had to deal in an extended way with somebody who was a serious con man. It can be hard to comprehend people who have no respect at all for people and social conventions. You can be sure they won't stop until they face real consequences. People like him are why the admittedly flawed criminal justice system exists. Speaking of which, many would do well to keep in mind that at least some of the people in jail are very, very good at convincing naive people that they are just innocent victims of bad circumstances, have found Jesus, or whatever else will get them out of jail the fastest, and free to run more and better cons.