From what I've heard from the graduate students and professors I've worked closely with throughout my undergrad is that the schools are more comparing undergrad to undergrad and MA to MA, and that they're only going to accept one maybe two applicants coming right out of undergrad every year. Like a grad student I worked with implied that, and then my primary investigator for my senior thesis pretty much outright said that and she's been on the committee before. Which makes sense because you really can't compare undergrad to MA, MA would win out every time. So I can't really answer your question about schools getting rid of their sociology master's programs (As far as I know, only smaller schools don't have one- my undergrad institution did and so did many of the institutions I applied to for my PhD), but that's what I know about the whole undergrad/MA thing.