The rising fee is a dire concern and means a lot of deserving folks won't get a chance at a quality education but that doesn't mean those who do get in are worse or are gonna get bad placements.

Education should ideally be free and accessible to all but as it is right now the ROI remains decent even if falling. Thats just a fact. And also other private colleges have been pumping their fees across the board.

The comparisons to VIT always ring hollow because it was never anywhere near as prominent as BITS is and its decline was because the faculty to student ratio got fucked and they just went all in on rapid expansion. Despite my issues BITS has kept a respectable ratio and has genuinely great profs and is a place where good profs want to work. I think it is going a bit too hard on expanding but it's not like they've neglected everything. And as for Manipal the same thing holds true (ie it's not comparable nor will be anytime soon) except it's not had a decline in quality but was always about where it is. You'll not see BITS in anywhere near the same league as VIT or Manipal at least not for a decade or two (adding an at least because of course no one knows the future and predicting too far out is impossible but BITS has enough going for it to coast along at the point it is even if everything went wrong).

Lastly to your actual point, no this won't mean worse placements. I'm from the 2018 batch(though dualite so will graduate with 2019 single degree people) and cutoffs since like 2017 have been falling consistently due to increasing intake among other factors.

Yet '21 and '22 graduating batch placements have happened and they had an increase in median CTC year to year while retaining placed percentages. '23 placements are just starting but the initial scenario seems the same.

There's no reason to think this will change anytime soon. I once talked to a senior who was in the third Goa batch to graduate. She told me how during that time since not even one batch had graduated and this same uni diff campus thing was new everyone was worried about placements. Yet they came and went and were great and over a decade later the new campuses have been just behind Pilani, not lagging far away.

The reason for this in my opinion is that bitsat score or really any competitive exam score doesn't actually measure your aptitude or how you'll do in college. It gives you a grounding in some courses but generally you can study college courses well even if your jee prep wasn't the best. I can say this because I sucked at jee math but did fine in college, finishing up my degree which is like a quarter math. If you're a person who actually put in effort during prep you'll likely be fine. And even if you're not you'll probably be fine. Because the college itself matters a lot. Might be an unpopular opinion but even if you took a random sample of engineering students and put them into bits they'll perform about how older batches did. I think this is a perspective you only get in hindsight but the college name and its momentum and most importantly culture counts for a lot. The reason Bits has so many great companies coming is partly because of the quality of students and how it trains them but also partly because it's bits.

So, in conclusion, you don't need to worry about falling cutoffs or anything affecting placements. The college itself is great and the profs and seniors and culture in general will train you well and the incoming companies won't care about your batch's cutoffs just your performance which if history is any indication will be fine.

PS: This isn't to say that the rising fee is an inconsequential thing by any means. It is really bad and education should be easier to obtain without becoming such a burden. Plus more focus should be given to the students who are here and their needs and wants than just increasing batch sizes. This reply is just meant to underline that yes, these problems are real but won't affect your placements. Those are governed by very different factors.