University applications from white British students ‘lowest since 2008’

How about white applicants as a proportion of a changing British populations? Elementary arithmetic, any one?

I expect the percentages above have factored this in. Anyone can quite easily do this for themselves on accessible demographic data for the UK. The recent percentage drops in white applicants cannot be explained by increasing birth rates of other groups alone. A stats model aiming to account for the range of likely socioeconomic factors and variables would be most appropriate. I expect the academics cited above have had a crack at this already. The question remains what do we as a country/culture/society want from its education system.