@project21 – just to clarify what your FAFSA means, as you clearly have been misinformed -
FAFSA is used to determine your eligibility for federal financial aid.
There are three types of federal aid:
- Pell grants
- Direct Student Loans
- Work Study
Pell grants are very small grants given to very low income students. The maximum annual Pell grant for 2017-2018 will be slightly under $6000 (it varies from year to year). Your 13,000 EFC is too high to qualify – basically this is only available to families with EFC’s of ~$5200 or less (that varies too, but the point is simply that you don’t qualify for this grant). A Pell grant is a government subsidy that does not have to be paid bck.
Direct Student loans are funded by the government, but you have to pay it back with interest. The maximum you can borrow your first year is $5500; in your second year the maximum is $6500; and in the third and fourth year you can borrow a maximum of $7500. Your EFC determines about whether you are eligible to have any parts of these loans be subsidized; with a subsidized loan payments are deferred until after you graduate, and you are not charged interest during the period of deferment. If your EFC is less than the COA for your school, you will be eligible for subsidized loans, but the maximum that may be subsidized in year 1 is $3500; in year 2 $4500; and in years 3 & 4 - $5500.
In other words, with your EFC, you will be able to borrow $19,000 total (over 4 years) while you are in school without being charged interest or having to make payments until after you graduate; you will also be eligible to borrow an additional $8000 ($27,000 total) – but will be charged interest on those loans from the outset, although you can opt to defer payments until after graduation. (But then your interest is added to the loan balance, so when you do start making payments, you will owe a lot more than you have borrowed.
Here’s the official web site that has this information: https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized
Work-study is a federal program that subsidizes wages that are paid to students for campus jobs. If your EFC is lower than COA, then you are eligible for work study – but each college will decide how much work-study to approve you for, if any. So you might get a financial aid award that approves you for $4000 of work-study, for example. You don’t get that money until you earn it, so it can’t be used for tuition – ordinarily you would use those earnings to cover expenses that come up later on, such as incidental expenses, buying text books, etc.
I think that the answer to your original questions is that ideally, parents and students discuss the "who pays" issue before the student begins applying for college. Wealthier parents -- or parents who have prioritized saving for college expenses -- may very well pay full cost for their child to attend college as well as providing an allowance to the child.
Middle class families like mine will typically split costs - in my case, I paid for tuition and housing, but expected my kids to borrow the maximum available in subsidized loans and to earn money with part-time jobs and summer employment. (I did not want my kids to take unsubsidized loans because I don't think that's wise financially).
When parents are unwilling or unable to contribute, students have more limited options --they need to attend schools they can afford, such as community colleges, colleges that award scholarships, or in-state options that are affordable. Living at home and commuting to a nearby public university is a common option. The combination of a Pell grant, federal loans, and work study is probably enough to cover tuition and other costs at most public universities, if the student doesn't have to pay for housing.
You have some good options on your college list but your attitude about your state university is not really a tenable decision for anyone in your situation. I understand that you don't like living in Arizona, but you have your entire life to live somewhere else. Dislike of climate is the sort of criteria that is reasonable when you have a choice between two or more options; it's not a good reason to refuse to apply to any affordable college altogether. I think that various state U's in Arizona have rolling admissions and/or later application deadlines, so I would suggest that you rethink your options and apply to one or more in-state universities. You will be in a better position to weigh options in the spring when you have financial aid packages in hand.
Your idea about loans are simply unrealistic. You simply are not going to be able to borrow the amount of money that you think you can.