Apologies, Tvistz…I guess you have moved on from here:
"I’m looking for a college in Southern Cali that has a finance major for undergraduates and is no more than 30min-1 hour from the beach. That’s all!
“I’ve been looking at colleges and LMU seems really suited to me. It’s near the beach, in California, does the major I need, etc.”
“There are a lot of factors in my decision to go to the U.S., but the main one is just how much I dislike the UK”.
The hard reality is that for you to get the kind of aid that you need in the US, you will have to go to a much lower ranked school than you would qualify for academically.
You are clearly smart and hard working, and want to be someplace else. So, if you can’t get 100% of what you want, maybe you can get a lot of what you want. For example, you could go to Trinity College Dublin (very inexpensive for your family, out of the UK for you), and spend a year at the University of California or University of Southern California (school sanctioned and organised, so easier parental approval; tuition at EU rates, not US rates, so more affordable, and a year in California for you). More info here: https://www.tcd.ie/study/non-eu/study-abroad/from-trinity/college-exchanges/Partner%20Universities/