I've read somewhere that at least some public universities outside of power conferences have these kinds of quotas to reduce the cost of scholarships for their athletic departments. I think that was 10 years ago or so, so maybe that's changed, though. That said, it's no coincidence that the schools that have started football programs and/or moved to FBS since the 90s (UCF, USF, FAU, FIU, TX St, UTSA, UAB, Troy, S Alabama, Ga St, Ga Southern, App St, Coastal Carolina, Charlotte, Old Dominion, Liberty, UMass, UConn, Buffalo, Boise State, Marshall, WKU, MTSU) are primarily in the Southeast, while a lot of schools that have dropped football in that same period are mostly private schools in the Northeast (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_college_football_teams), albeit they were only FCS programs in the first place.
On a related note, I've wondered how walk-ons who can get financial aid are accounted for. I've heard conflicting info about this.
That said, while this was meant as a hypothetical, you are seeing this kind of phenomenon to some extent with applications and admissions at public universities, including Michigan, which now offers more substantial financial aid to in-state students, depending on their family's income. Meanwhile, the number of out-of-state students has risen for a while, though it seems that they're trying to keep the percentage stable by admitting more in-state students, too, as the undergrad population has risen from 25k to almost 30k since I was in school (part of that may also be more students taking 5 to 6 years to graduate).... I don't mean to go on a complete tangent, but population of 18-22 year-olds has been in steady decline over the past 5 years and is expected to continue for awhile with declining fertility rates, and some people think that could put a lot of small colleges at risk of having to close or merge, which would primarily cause D3 and NAIA to shrink.
