That's slightly incorrect. Whatever price you would have paid for the APC you still had an upfront payment for the bond, lowest 5k then later 10k.. Most mates during my interview did not do any APC and were accepted same as me. MCC only.
What people don't realize is that you are not applying or joining Ryanair. They aren't stupid. By early 2020 Ryanair outsourced (on paper) to themselves all aspects of training. I've had many dinners and beers with TRIs about this when it hit my previous (Austrian sister) airline.
In simple terms people are paying for a rating from a company (A) , then from that pool of graduates they(B) will hire as the need arises. That's it. Learn from the easyjet debacle that you are not an employee, they really are smarter than that. They could charge 70k as someone pointed out and it wouldn't matter, there's enough people to pay the tab.