NCAA Change regarding Academic money counting toward 11.7 in certain circumstances..

I'm not aware of a new rule regarding academic aid and its relationship to the 11.7 equivalency limitation. Of course, that depends on what is considered to be "new".

However, for your specific example, the important point is that the money is coming from an outside source, rather than institutional money. So the following rule from 15.2.6 Financial Aid from Outside Sources probably applies:
15.2.6.3 Financial Aid From an Established and Continuing Program. A student-athlete may receive financial aid through an established and continuing program to aid students, provided:
(a) The recipient’s choice of institutions is not restricted by the donor of the aid; and
(b) There is no direct connection between the donor and the student-athlete’s institution.

There was a rule change about a year ago that actually made it easier to get academic money WITHOUT it counting against the 11.7.

Sometimes when you see the "new" rule, you don't realize that it actually represents a change in the other direction, if you didn't know the prior rule existed in the first place.

The D1 Head Coach that was providing this information said:

"A new change to the rule requires that if a student receives an Academic scholarship and their GPA is < 3.5 and the SAT score was less than something (I cannot remember that part) that the academic scholarship will count against the 11.7 athletic scholarships available. "

He said "This means that sometimes it is more than just about talent. In the past, if a player was not able to be offered athletic scholarship money, but he was able to get academic money, a coach could take him without it counting against his 11.7. Now if that player does not meet the minimum threshold, his academic money would count against the 11.7 and the coach would have to cut the player because he did not have the space to keep him."

The actual rule (which is not new-- I believe the last change was the clarification about SAT scores, when the SATs started to have 3 scores instead of 2):
15.5.3.2.2.1 Academic Honor Awards—Based on High School Record. Academic honor awards that are part of an institution’s normal arrangements for academic scholarships, based solely on the recipient’s high school record and awarded independently of athletics interests and in amounts consistent with the pattern of all such awards made by the institution, are exempt from an institution’s equivalency computation, provided the recipient was ranked in the upper 10 percent of the high school graduating class or achieved a cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.500 (based on a maximum of 4.000) or a minimum ACT sum score of 105 or a minimum SAT score of 1200 (critical reading and math).