<p>Gibby, there are many ways for any complex institution to offer aid, without being direct aid. I’ll talk in generalities, without naming schools. An example are the bequests with very loose definitions of how need should be defined for the recipient of the specific scholarship. For example, there are specific funds that can only be used for students with need from country or region x. For a school to use the funds the definition of need gets greatly expanded. These restricted bequests may also offer additional perks, like stipend for a computer, etc. The funds may also come from an outside scholarship. HS X may have funding specifically for a student who will attend x or y university. There are also special funds that can be distributed to a department from the president’s/dean’s office to cover research needs for work the student will do with a professor at the department.That student usually gets a personal call by a department head, big professor on campus, to come and work with that faculty. It is the same process used by universities when they institute policies hiring a faculty from a targeted population. For example, if you hire a double or triple whammy (female/URM/veteran) as they are called, you get funding to pay their salary directly from the special fund and does not come from the departmental fund. Harvard also offers scholarships that are not need based. If you belong in the restricted fund group, you get one, an example is the Downer descendants scholarship. <a href=“http://www.scholarship.harvard.edu/aid.html[/url]”>http://www.scholarship.harvard.edu/aid.html</a>
The criteria for “Most of these scholarships and fellowships are restricted to students who meet specific eligibility criteria established by the original donors” and these criteria are not always need based.</p>