one way for universities to recover: let the worst ones sink. Even the most famous and oldest ones.
I have seen an european Dean say "some pp think that just because we are famous and have been here for 700y, that it means we can do any shit, as much as we want, and still new students will choose us"
less young pp due to demographic changes, poorer pp due to general empoverishment, and dumber pp due to generally worse woke education, all will make life harder for the univs.
many pp are already waking up to the fact that 300K debt for a shit soft course dumber than your grandpa high school is not a good choice.