“full pay students should receive a very substantial admissions boost”
I think that there is probably some truth to this. Some programs are going to find it harder than it was to attract students. It is not clear to me how much of a change this will be.
As an example, one thing that I have wondered about is whether admissions to veterinary school might be very marginally easier than it was in the past so long as you happen to have parents who can still afford to either pay or borrow the full cost. There might be slightly fewer students who can come up with the cash to pay enough to leave themselves with a debt that they can handle with a veterinarian’s salary.
At today’s prices I would have picked different a different university back when I was coming out of high school. It is hard to know what difference this would have made in the long run.
I have already noticed an increase in the quality of the graduates coming out of our in-state public university. I would expect this to continue.