I’m not sure where you’ve got the stats from, but student visas granted dropped since 2022, acc to UK gov (-5% in 2023, -14% in 2024).[0]

Combined with universities' increasing reliance on international student income (over the last years) and issues accessing research funding, this can get universities into trouble.

[0] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

Here's one source, I checked a couple, the numbers varied between sources curiously but they seemed reasonably consistent.

They do show drops in the last year or two, but I find it hard to attribute that to Brexit when they're still much higher.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/293277/study-related-vis...