Jack, the visa issue was coincident with the push to massively cut expenditure. ATC was removed from the list of eligible occupations making it much more difficult and much more expensive to obtain a visa, so recruitment of experienced foreign controllers would have almost certainly stopped regardless of the expenditure cuts.
No mistake in numbers required as we still need more in the long term - our age profile is rather top heavy with many set to retire in 5 to 10 years.
Such cuts go in cycles - new manager makes deep cuts to impress the bean counters then the organisation slowly expands over 15 or so years. Rinse and repeat.
50 50, to be fair those were about your odds of passing the course and gaining a rating. Bit premature talking about new job and new house.