To your point if a school had picked up that many frehman in one class. That would be a college that may have less spots avaible come 5th year.You are assuming that Senior was using a full scholarship which is highly doubtful unless the player is a true phenom and then that would apply to top 20 teams.
1 to 4 recruits a year??? Did you mean to say 1 to 4 Seniors? I f you really mean to recruits, that is WAY off. I would say a VERY minimum of 5 recruits per freshman class. One team that I can think of had 14 freshman and 3 transfers. No lie. The freshman class is always the largest class. There is so much attrition year to year in college softball or various reasons that they have to have large recruiting classes. If a coach only brought in 1 freshman recruit, they would not be around next year.
Speaking rather across the board numbers not the one or two schools you are reffering to. True certain athletes may not stay on. Others may take a cut in funding to make adjustments.
If you add up the money on the entire roster there will be a deficit in the equation somewhere program by program.
If open to going anywhere it may not matter as much.
If selecting colleges for particular reason could be concerning. Coaches recruitment will fall greater to the contingency if players stay or not. In other words coaches will need to assess players who will or will not be graduating in 4 years becomes part of the equation.
Have not read colleges have an increased budget to handle extra scholarship funding. That would alleviate any conversation to this topic.
With the new option to stay and play can only wait and see how that turns out.