Hey H213,
I would say the avg offf campus apartment is around $700 (with utilities) for a big one bedroom, if you want to go smaller it is around $600. So as you can see it is a lot cheaper than the 11,000 they quote unless you decide to do Samson, which I will say almost do not do! It is tiny and way too much money. The only plus about Samson is everything is included in your rent, so you dont have to bother trying to hook up utilities etc, and it has a lot of stuff near it (bookstore, gym, restuarants, etc). But it is also farther away from school. I know a lot of people that live around me on 41st and spruce which is a block from the school, and we all pay around $700. I looked on the off campus living website, which the school should be sending you info about, or just go to the penn page and type it in. Most of the places around here are owned by UCA, or Campus Apartments, so you might just want to give them a call, and once again you can get that all off the website.
I dont know what other handouts Penn gives, but I do know the Stafford loan is the first gov loan people take and it maxes at $38,500 a year.
