In practice, impressive PSU Ph.D. scholarships do exit, but their availability has been limited to few students obtaining their previous degrees from other (preferably, better known)universities.

In the year 2005, there was at least a worse case where a PhD student at PSU who meets all the quality criteria but cannot obtain any of those scholarships, simply because he has obtained all his Bachelor/Master degrees from PSU. This, viewed positively, is a deposit of gold for outsiders, but, viewed negatively, represents a trap for PSU-born students.