So I pretty much want to know how I can ask a school for more money without filing a formal appeal. This is because the school I am referencing only has appeals in the case of special financial circumstances. I have only looked at the appeal process for this college so I am not sure what it is like for other schools.
My EFC was 1,400 (realistically we can contribute about 3,000) but I was left with 20,000 in both federal student and federal parent loans.
I was granted work study at a different school, but not this one.
My parents run their own small business (idk if this helps) and my dad has 2 other part time jobs as well. I do not want to stick them with this amount of debt nor do I wish to be stuck with it.
Different schools have different systems of appeals. For example, Carnegie Mellon has a form you can fax to appeal need based and merit based aid up to 10k. It really depends on the school.
Basically you are looking at a school that do not meet need and not affordable to you. Frankly, you do need to talk to the FA office to see if they can provide further help. I would not count the parent loan as financial aid.