Accepting College Loans

I'm an incoming college freshman, and the financial aid package that I received from my college includes a federal subsidized loan of around $3,500. The college itself also offered a small $1,000 loan with a 4.5% fixed interest rate. These loans would definitely help, but I don't necessarily need them. I don't really see a downside in accepting the subsidized loan since the government pays the interest, but would there be any incentive to accept the institutional loan of $1,000, such as helping build credit or anything like that? I know I'd end up losing money in the long run (around $240 in interest I think), but I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to dealing with loans and don't know if there's any potential upside to accepting it.