<p>You still have time to apply to other schools which may do a better job of meeting need. You should notify American you are not accepting their ED offer for financial reasons and you are then free to apply to other schools. Unfortunately you received very bad advice. There are only a small handful of ED schools which meet full need with either no loans or loan caps and those are the only schools financial aid applicants should be applying to ED.
American is clearly not one of them.</p>