Advice for USD financial aid (transfer student)

MJgirl
Thu, 03 Dec 2015 21:22:15 +0000

This is my situation and since I am not familiar with financial aid for transfers, I would kindly appreciate your advice.

Just a few days ago, I transferred successfully from CSU school to USD. My main reason was because I hated the campus, atmosphere and I was commuting 5 days a week for almost three years (40 miles). Also, the reason why I choose USD is because I live in San Diego and I really like the USD campus. I am planning to live off campus and continue to live with my parents; my estimated family income is $11.000 (extremely low).
Now, the problem is that at CSU I was offered full financial aid (no loans) and it covered my whole tuition. I even had leftovers to for gas and books. However, I just opened my financial aid awards window at USD portal and this is what I see:
$30,347.00 -estimated cost of attendance
$22,000.00 - cost of tuition alone.

This is the package that I got:
Federal Pell Grant

$2,812.00

Fed Direct Subsidized Loan

$4,500.00

Fed Direct Unsubsidized Loan

$2,000.00

Fed Direct Parent PLUS Loan
$21,035.00

I don’t know if I am reading this right, and I’ve received an email that I still have to submit certain forms, but this looks terrible. I basically need to take majority of loans in order to afford last 2 years of college and obviously will end up in huge debt, which is certainly not worth it. I was expecting to receive a better package since my family’s income is very low. I heard that USD is not a generous school when it comes to funding but this is really, really disappointing. What would you suggest?

Btw I’m a biology major, if that helps.