<p>Brielle, you are not giving us the whole picture here. You are in a highly unusual situation. You have not graduated from high school, taken the SAT or other tests, are under age 24 but being treated as an independents, probably through professional judgement from fin aid officer at that cc, and living with a relative and probably getting state rates at this school.</p>
<p>You are on shaky ground in a number of categories, and to get financial aid without your parents’s involvement, and state residence involves some college fin aid officer to make a lot of overrrides in your particular case. I think you had better get your AA degree, at least and hopefully the counselors can direct you to someone they know for the next four years of your degree.</p>
<p>Some issues that strike me are whether you are going to run out Stafford loan money before you are done You have 6 years of PELL, but if you are taking the Stafford maximum loans out each year, as an independent, you are going to be bone dry in 4 years. That is the UG maximum. </p>
<p>You are in Illinois which is expensive for even instaters for college costs, so staying in a CC as long as possible makes sense. Also, room and board is expensive. That you have a friend or relative that is helping with that cost makes a big difference. </p>
<p>I commend you for getting yourself where you are after so much trauma and doing well in college . I think getting a degree and letting a counselor help you with the next steps is a good way to go. </p>
<p>This board is really more for mainstream students and when you come up with all of these exceptions to the rules, what we have to offer in advice gets to be murky, especially when you have not given us all of the facts. Yes, your aid is portable, but if you are not straight out entitled to it without professional judgement exceptions made for you, this has to be done at every single school where you apply. The pro ju does not extend to any other school, just the one you have gotten at yours. If you want to try to go through the process elsewhere, go on ahead, but it is late to do so, you are talking about a max of $16K you are working with as an independent, and you are in a state where the costs are higher than that if you room at a college, and you are thinking of replacing your current situation complete with a paying job as well as a cot and 3 squares with going elsewhere. Ummm. Not gonna be easy without an SAT, high school degree,etc.</p>
<p>So things that are usually the focus, such as portability of federal aid, great grades in community college are not the only essentials here when you need pro ju for independent status, state residency, no SAT/ACT, no high school diploma, no home school curriculum to show.</p>