My daughter’s financial aid package at Brown has several clear components, some of which can be replaced by external scholarships. She was permitted to “cover” her summer earnings contribution (about $2,700), her work study award (about $2700 - $2,900) and her loan ($3,000) and could also have gotten another $1,000 permitted for a computer. After that, any additional external scholarship money would have reduced her Brown scholarship (need-based aid). Note that this leaves the parental contribution fixed - it can NOT be reduced with external scholarship dollars. She ended up getting scholarships totaling something in the neighborhood of $5,000 (about $4,000 of that will be renewable) and this is VERY helpful for us. Interestingly, though, the renewable portion is itself reduced if she gets any OTHER scholarship money. So that scholarship agency’s policy is much the university’s financial aid policy! All very complicated.