Fix or trade

What is your question?

I have a 2012 jeep compass limited. I got it in 2016, it came with 94k miles on it. I was in college at the time, So there's now almost 180k on it. We are paying about 12,500$ In total for the car. Well, it has been stuttering and it's gotten a lot worse. We need a new catalytic converter. Everything else seems to be fine. We have replaced parts as needed. Mind you my husband nor I are really into cars but have a friend who is who has been doing his best to help us maintain it. My problem is that my inspection is due this month and we very much don't have the money to replace the converter that we cannot pass inspection without. We still have another year of paying the car off as well. I think we still owe about 2300$. The hood and trunk have a good amount of rust unfortunately. (We live in rural NY). I was wondering if it was worth trying to scrape the money together to get it fixed even if we had to get an extension on the inspection or try to trade it in for something cheap.