Is it common in academia to not have any written "contract" when you get a scholarship? If you are been accepted into a Master's program which grants a scholarship to its participants, they just send you a letter outlining the scholarship in a brief manner. Is this common in academia?

Question:

Is it common in academia to not have any written "contract" when you get a scholarship? 

Edit:

I am mostly interested in Europe (in particular Germany if it makes a difference)
Caveat: A US view, and there are exceptions even here as noted below. 

There will, I think, always be an "agreement" even if it isn't a formal contract. It probably isn't something that is negotiated, with the student having any say. But accepting such a scholarship is a formal agreement to abide by some set of rules, that may be just statements of policy somewhere, perhaps visible on a web site. All the details may be spelled out in the letter of acceptance, but it is more likely that the student simply makes agreement to obey the rules in force. 

The most common "rule" is that the student maintain "good standing" which involves something about GPA, perhaps, and not being sanctioned for misconduct. Whether it rises to the level of a "contract" however, depends on too many things (local law,...) to have a definite answer here. 

I suspect that in many cases the (informal) contract can be modified by the university without explicit consent of the student. The student's only likely recourse is to accept the new terms or stop receiving funding. 

Note also that this differs (drastically) in some places and some situations. It also depends on what you mean by "scholarship". If there are specific duties attached (not the common case in US) then the contract is more likely to be a formal one. In particular a TA position has certain duties and so additional requirements. 

If a scholarship has no duties attached then it is probably also possible for the university to terminate it for many reasons, including financial ones. But the student can also leave the university (possibly needing to return pre-paid funds) without penalty. This might be different if there were a formal contract.