As I understand it, nowadays all students are subsidized because the cost of providing the education is not covered by the cost of tuition -- even full price; most of the subsidies are from the government, unless it's a college like Hillsdale, for example. And there aren't nearly as many full scholarships as there were, say, 30 or 40 years ago (when tuition was
a lot cheaper. Today, the thing in financial aid seems to be to offer a package --
maybe a paltry partial scholarship, with loans (mostly government and school) and work-study.
All the schools I've been familiar with that offer scholarships have actual scholarship funds, provided by donors.
Many colleges and universities still off full scholarships; no loans needed nor required of some of the students. Though yes, there ARE some specific scholarships that are fully funded by donations put into self renewing hedge funds/stock funds, most aren't.
Oh I've seen the adds about how NO students fees are really covered by what they pay too. That isn't exactly true. Lots of colleges and universities use funds for things they don't count towards actual education, but throw in those costs into the mix.
College/university costs were a LOT less in previous times, because they weren't being used as high schools; as they are today and most people did NOT go to college. But costs are also misleading. WHY? Because it's all relative, vis-a-vis what people earn now and what they earned 50 or more years ago.