It's not quite like that, as far as Alabama is concerned, they do offer a ton of scholarships to offset the out of state costs. They're very generous but they're not automatic. My daughter had a 3.95 gpa in high school but her school and class were very competitive. She wasn't even top 20% with those grades.
My son went to UT and received exactly ZERO scholarships. Most all of those go to the "disadvantaged". At Alabama, my daughter received a merit scholarship and a couple of additional ones initially and continues to receive new ones she keeps applying. They gave her one for having "extensively traveled throughout Central America" as a kid.
It helped her that she had a lot on her resume. Volunteer work, FFA, Cheer, student counsel, TOKC and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few others. The point is that is they do like students who are involved in activities that they can show they did something other than just show up or win a popularity contest (the Texas admissions people say this as well) and that is what separated her from her peers and earned her close to $100,000 in scholarships so far.
Oh, and she's having the time of her life. That place parties.
p.s. The 60% out of state is true.