Do stipends/other jobs count towards financial aid package?

[stormageddon]

Say if I got accepted to a university that has a COA of $25,000 per year - $15,000 for tuition and $10,000 for living expenses (simplified example, I know, but bear with me). If I wasn't funded at all, I would technically be able to take out $25,000 of loans (even though I know this would be extremely unadvisable). If I got a tuition waiver, I assume I would be able to take out the remaining $10,000 of "need" that I have for living expenses.

The thing that I'm wondering is if assistantships count towards a person's financial aid package. So if, in the example above, I got a tuition waiver and an assistantship that pays a stipend of $10,000 a year, would I be ineligible to take out any federal loans? Or would the assistantship not count towards financial aid, making me eligible to still take out the $10,000 for living expenses?

I completely realize that taking out loans when you don't need to is bad. I was just talking to someone the other day and was told that stipends don't count towards financial aid. I thought that seemed weird - work-study is included in financial aid packages for undergraduates after all.

My assumption is that assistantship stipends count towards financial aid but regular part-time jobs (whether inside or outside the university) would not. Is this a good general rule of thumb, or does it depend on your university? What's the policy at your school?