Local Files will not Sync from Mac onto iPhone

[sammy5198]

Premium 

U.S. but currently studying in U.K.

iPhone 8s 

Macbook Pro

I have seen numerous posts on this in other threads, but all of the solutions I have seen did not work for me. 

I am on an iPhone and Macbook Pro. My downloaded songs appear on the Macbook and play fine, but do not show up whatsoever on my phone.

I have tried:

- Disabling my firewall 

- Creating a folder in my downloads and moving the downloaded files to the new folder

- Making sure both devices are on the same wifi. I am on university wifi (eduroam) so maybe that has something to do with it? But it is the only wifi I can use. 

- I turned the hotspot on on my phone and that also did not work

- Creating a special playlist just for local files - the playlist shows up on my phone, but it says there are no songs

Please help, the downloaded local files are some of my favorite songs not available on Spotify and I would be devastated if I could not listen to them. I have been trying to fix this for over an hour now! 😞