I had thought that in most cases out of state public schools ignore your need when deciding whether to admit you, and then again ignore your need when deciding whether to give you any financial aid. Some public schools provide some merit aid for out of state students. Some do not.
However, just now I did a Google search for a few public universities up here in the northeast, and for UCLA (since it was mentioned in the other thread). Google AI claimed that these schools were not need blind for out of state students. Thus according to Google AI the school might consider your need when deciding whether to admit you, even if they were not going to meet your need anyway.
I am wondering whether Google AI might be the source of confusion in this case.