My guess from your $6500 Direct Loan award is that you are attending a community college or other state option local to you and commuting from home right now, and that you can afford the cost of the local school. You are looking to transfer to maybe the flagship or other such state university that require room/board and the costs that go with going away to school.
If you look at your SAR that is provided by your FAFSA, it will give you your Expected Family Contribution, or EFC which what is usually the very minimum you will be expected to pay before getting any federal aid. It does not look like you qualify for the PELL grant. That and the Direct loans (max $6500 for sophomores) are ALL that are guaranteed by the federal government. Anything else comes from the school itself, and there isn’t a school in this country that guarantees to meet need as defined by the FAFSA EFC. Most schools gap, and many gap big time. My state schools do tend to meet the need as defined by the FAFSA EFC, but only up to tuition and fees. Not room, board, books, transportation, supplies, living expenses, discretionary spending allowance. All that is on the student and family.
Did you already file the FAFSA? One thing that could lower your EFC if you have $3K in asset in your name is to spend the amount down or reimburse your parents for expenses so that you have zero in assets. You get hit a whomping 20% ($600) directly to your EFC for any assets with no protection allowance whereas your parents get a protection allowance and are only assessed 5.6% of the excess.
So I am assuming that you worked and went to a local school, paying your way as you went since the tuition was not that expensive and your parents covered a lot of your living expenses in providing the proverbial cot and three squares. You managed to save $3K towards future school, got dinged $600 on that, maybe more if you earned more than about $6K during that time. That and your parents’ financial s put you over PELL grant and state entitlement range–do look at what state funding options are available to you, and your prospective school does not guarantee to meet full need.
The average college student does not go away to college. Can’t afford the cost. Living at home is savings of about $10K, probably more. What they do is what you were probably doing last year. Working full or part time and going to school full and part time, paying as they go, to some local school so family can help subsidize living expenses without much strain due to the sunk costs involved in having a household. A whole other story to pay for all costs for a room away somewhere and the food/supplies you need to live away.
If you are a good student getting good grades at your local school, and have some solid plans for future studies, decent but not necessarily great test scores, you might have a shot at some private schools that do guarantee to meet full need, that may give you more money than this school has. Such schools do use PROFILE as well as FAFSA and you still most often have to pay that FAFSA EFC whatever it might be and then some, since their definition is not likely to be what yours and FAFSA’s calculators may say it would be. Check NPCs for some such schools as well as for this school to which you applied and see what they expect you and your family to pay.This will give you as close as possible what you can reasonably expect to have to come up with to go away to school,