This has been the norm for eons.
In the 1980s I was in the College of Engineering at my university and when I was accepted in my Junior year I had to have a 3.1 GPA just to apply. The university was admitting a large number of foreign students into the program and those students only needed the "university average" of a 2.25 GPA to get into an engineering program.
When I graduated two years later they had almost doubled the foreign student entries and the US students had to have a 3.4 GPA to apply for the programs while the foreigners still only needed a 2.25 GPA.
When I graduated I was paying $55 per credit/hour plus a fee of $300/term just for the privilege of being in the engineering college while the foreign students were forking over $900 per credit/hour. A total cash grab, nothing more.
Nothing new about this. Been that way at least since the ‘70s. Had a good friend that was awarded a Teaching Assistant Scholarship. Shortly before the term started, he was called in and asked to relinquish it so that it could be given to “a more deserving foreign student”.
He refused, but they saw to it that he only lasted one year.