Yes, those are possible explanations. Still, it seems like a drop in applicants over the 4 years reported to the Board from 3205 applicants in an economically unstable time to 2866 applicants last cycle when many BSs were reporting record-breaking numbers of applicants. I am sure there is self-selection involved to some degree.
And if $7.9M is for 307 spots, there are about 1100 total spots, so that would represent a huge increase this year in FA. I think, though, that there are ~460 offers out, so that would better correlate if some of those offered FA chose to go elsewhere and the $7.9M offered is more or less randomly dispersed over those who matriculate and those who do not.