From my direct experience, even the Russel group universities are in a dire financial situation. At least that's the top down message, again being positive in cash for many years and owning property to me would be a good position but I have first hand knowledge of Russel group universities cutting staff/roles/courses and going after the foreign students as much as they can.
Some of this is their own making - for example the 'highly respected' universities not doing clearing so when their intake is lower than expected they don't top that up with 2nd choices.
Schools are now competing within universities to win student retention so their numbers don't look as bad / to help protect their budgets from being slashed further.
> pretty much all of our "traditional" universities are absolutely capable of standing on their feet without international students
This is simply not true. At least not currently possible. If the UK made the _strategic decision_ then I don't see why we couldn't, but currently if all foreign students boycott'd the UK then the majority of our universities would be bankrupt. (Again, in the way they are currently managed: they could sell property etc. but that's never considered.)