For those who have applied for student loans in the U.S...

I am currently applying for my federal loans and I am getting a tad confused and figured I could ask here as there doesn't seem to be any help on the student loan site.

Doing my loan I keep noticing that in my loan application it keeps having stuff like "room and board" and "transportation" in calculated costs. I am going to be working full-time and am registered living OFF-CAMPUS so I am very confused as to why these things keep popping up.

It is giving me the option to adjust the individual cost areas now so I can take out all those costs outside of my tuition and whatnot. I am wondering if I SHOULD be taking out all those additional costs and just go for the bare minimum of covering tuition (which is what I need the loan for. I am self-sufficient in terms of paying bills) or do they know something I don't?

Wanted to get some feedback on this before I go any further so I don't end up screwing this up. Your help is appreciated!

A lot of it is really dependent on the city where the campus is. I'm in the Pac Northwest, and rent is getting CRAZY high, so they calculate that into their algorithm for cost of living.

If there is an option to do bare minimum just for the year and not for all of your schooling, then I'd do that to see if you can live off of it. Overall though, going in, you know they want you to borrow more, so don't forget that.