January 2022 – View From A Bridge – management, education and personal thoughts

UniVanity League Table

Unveiling a new league table and asking people to look is a bit like extolling the virtues of a spare tyre. It’s not needed for any functional purpose, takes up space that could be used for better purposes and does not assist with current performance. Little wonder that about 30% of new cars don’t have one and something of surprise that university league tables continue to proliferate with the support and knowing glances of institutions that should know better.

The UniVanity League Table emerges from a review of the 141 institutional strategic plans and home pages of universities who are members of UUK. The table reflects a mixture of fact at a point in time, a scoring system* laced with bias, and an entirely personal component to replicate those well-established rankings that rely on questionnaire responses. It’s a similar methodology (or ‘mythology’ as a US News and World Report ex-editor told Malcolm Gladwell) to many of the major league tables.

53 of 141 institutions reviewed used rankings from major league tables** on their home page but, the UniVanity Table focuses on 27 who state that achieving a ranking, either explicitly or implicitly in a main league table, is a strategic objective. Elevating pursuit of rankings to this level looks, in many cases, like a vanity project and is certainly a distraction from the core business of a university. If fox-hunting is the ‘unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’, chasing rankings may be considered the insecure in pursuit of the unnecessary.

Readers can be assured that this table, unlike most others, is made available without advertising from institutions and will not be developed or exploited for commercial gain or to build a database of students, parents, agents or government officials who might look at it. A celebratory event may be held if a sufficient number of universities are willing to invest their scarce resources to buy a table of ten at an appropriately salubrious London venue where they can eat, drink and dance the night away.

UNIVANITY LEAGUE TABLE 2022

University	Stated Aim	Score
Southampton	top 10 UK and towards a top 50 internationally	26
Bristol	firmly established among the world’s top-50 universities (draft)	23
Durham	The Times/Sunday Times League Tables Top 5	22
Queen’s Belfast	top 175 in global league tables	21
Birmingham	within the top 50 global institutions in the leading international tables	20
Plymouth	Top 30 in national league tables Top 250 in international ranking	20
Manchester	in the top 25 in leading international rankings	18
Glasgow Caledonian	Annual improvement in Impact Rankings score	18
Lancaster	progress towards a top 100 position in key global rankings	14
East Anglia	as a top 20 university in all of the main UK university league tables	14
Essex	top 25 Times Good University Guide..top 200 Times Higher Education World Rankings	14
Liverpool	among the top 20 UK universities in the world rankings	14
Central Lancashire	League table ranking (Guardian, Times, GUG)	14
Heriot Watt	World University ranking top 250	13
West of Scotland	recognised as a world leading university ranked inside the top 200	13
Cardiff	UK top 20 in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide..world top 200..QS World University Rankings..TimesHigher Education World University Rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities and the Best Global Universities Ranking, and in the top 100 of at least one of these	12
City	Top 20 in the Times and Sunday Times University League Table	11
West London	KPI – Aggregate League table position Top 50	11
Solent	Times Higher Education Impact Rankings Top third of rankings	11
Surrey	reaching the top 200 in THE and QS, and the top 300 in ARWU	8
Huddersfield	Top 300 Times and QS World University Rankings	8
Liverpool John Moores	reputation reflected in..THE WUR: performance of disciplines in Times and Sunday Times	8
South Bank	being in the top 500 QS and THE rankings	8
Newcastle	global Top 100 as measured by at least one of the main university rankings	7
Royal College of Art	number 1 for art and design in the QS World University Rankings. The College will occupy the same position in 2021	7
Buckingham New	80th or better in aggregate across league tables	5
Stirling	one of the top 25 universities in the UK	4

You had one eye in the mirror**

Russell Group universities dominate the table with all top five places and nine of the overall positions which suggests that they feel a real need for external validation. It’s a reminder of the old McKinsey hiring dictum to recruit people who are “smart…driven by their insecurity;and..competitive”. Institutions that are in a club claiming to be for the “UK’s leading research-focused universities” should probably feel more comfortable in their quality.

The Group has always been slightly ambivalent about league tables with various press releases making the point that “League tables shouldn’t be used in isolation to make judgements about the quality of an institution..” (2015) and “Ranking universities is fraught with difficulties..” (2014). Perhaps it is the division in the views of the members themselves that has caused the Group to be silent on the issue in recent years. It is also something that Universities UK seems to steer well clear of with a search showing no comments on rankings and league tables at all.

Well you’re where you should be all the time

Tom Peter’s book What Gets Measured Gets Done borrowed the phrase from what he considers the soundest piece of management advice he ever heard, which is why it matters when universities elect to chase specific league table targets. With many strategic plans reaching a decade into the future it is just possible that the real driver is the ease with which current management can make supposedly visionary statements with no accountability for delivery. There is also a good deal of fudging of the actual measurement leaving future reporting to decide which table to report against.

Durham University’s strategy set a target to be Top 5 in the Times/Sunday Times league table by 2027 which could reflect that this is a much easier set of parameters to manage than the THE World Rankings where the institution’s position dropped from 96 to 162 from 2017 to 2022.

Liverpool takes a more nuanced stance in wanting to achieve “a UK top 20 worldwide ranking in a recognised international league table by 2026.” At one level this suggests that it is content to see its global position decline as long as other UK universities see the same or greater decline in their position. In the THE World Rankings the university was 25^th in the UK and its overall world position had fallen from 158 to 178 since 2017.

Birmingham has made some progress but is falling some way short of its stated ambition of “..ranking within the top 50 global institutions in the leading international tables”. Since 2017, they have moved from 130 to 105 in the THE but have fallen from 79 to 90 in the QS rankings since 2019 and have been becalmed in the 101-150 ranking of AWRU for the last five years. The timescale for achieving top 50 is 2030 but the incoming Vice Chancellor must be wondering how the growing strength of other countries will mitigate against further progress.

The great shame is that each university has a Strategic Plan that is choc full of ideas, creativity, energy and brilliant stories of how they intend to make students, the economy and the world better off. These are good reasons that holding the institutions sense of worth, progress and well being ransom to a vainglorious punt on league tables makes so little sense.

You Gave Away the Things You Loved

Reviewing over 140 university Strategic Plans is a reminder of the transformative power that institutions have and the tradition of diversity, quality and excellence that they offer. It reminded me of Sir Howard Newby, then chief executive of HEFCE, commenting that, “I think the English – and I do mean the English – do have a genius for turning diversity into hierarchy..”. Perhaps the league table compilers play on this genius to tempt universities into trading instincts for collaboration and cooperation for a system that encourages game playing and one upmanship.

Whatever the reason, the willingness to be judged by external forces seems contrary to the notion of universities as autonomous, self-governing institutions. The sector has, over time, grumbled mightily about REF, teaching quality framework, NSS and others, so willingly paying homage at the altar of QS, THE, AWUR et al seems out of character. It is reasonable to measure progress but there are many more targeted mechanisms for determining performance.

By engaging so actively and giving prominence to league tables, universities are also giving significant opportunities for the commercialization of data from potential students. It is another example of a sector which is struggling to come to terms with the reality that for many organizations education has become just another business opportunity. External investment and for-profit organizations are very welcome where they serve the interests of students, research and teaching but the sector should act collectively to prevent exploitation and ensure that it receives a reasonable slice of any revenue being generated.

Notes

* The final score is generated from six categories. These are: mention (explicit or implicit) of ranking/tables as a measure of performance in the strategic plan; whether the strategic plan was downloadable/easily searchable; how many years are left on the plan; whether rankings were mentioned on the university homepage; Russell Group membership and; whether the compiler had visited the campus and enjoyed the experience.

**’main league table’ generally refers to those published by Times Higher Education, QS Quacquarelli Symonds, or Academic World University Ranking by Shanghai Rankings or in the UK by major national newspapers or the Complete University Guide.

***Sub-headings are, aptly, from You’re So Vain, a song by Carly Simon and released in 1972. It topped the charts in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and sparked years of speculations as to its subject. Simon has gone as far as to say that the song is about three men and Warren Beatty is one (verse two). Separately, she said the ‘apricot scarf’ was worn by American writer, Nick Delbanco.

****If any of the universities listed feel I have misunderstood the intention of their strategic plan or referred to an incorrect/out of date version I will be happy to receive authoritative corrections and note them on this blog.

Making Music or Chasing Placing

When Simon Rattle was interviewed about his move from the Berlin Philharmonic to the London Symphony Orchestra he made the point, “There are a few great orchestras in the world, thank goodness. Although some people do put them in ranking order, it’s not like a snooker match. Each orchestra has different things to offer. In some ways these two orchestras are as different as you can imagine.” He went on to comment that, “So many of the things I believe deeply in, including this idea of access for everybody, that education and growth should be at the centre of an orchestra, are exactly what the LSO have been doing.” Universities share some characteristics with orchestras and access, education and growth should always come before rankings.

Regrettably, the University of Southampton’s recently published strategic plan is a reminder that some universities are willing to consider the empty credibility of league tables as equal to the needs of students, communities and society. However, my review of 50 UK university strategic plans suggests that most are avoiding the temptation of putting rankings as a measure of performance, with the Principal and President of King’s College London even writing in a preamble to their plan, “This is not about league tables but about the real contributions we make to the world around us.” Some who have built their measurement around league table rankings are finding that their statements are not ageing terribly well.

University of Southampton

The University of Southampton has been good enough to leave the September 2021 Consultation Draft Strategy on its website so it is possible to see how it developed a more bombastic tone that leaned towards rankings as a sign of success. For example, the draft Purpose and Vision’s rather modest “we aspire to achieve the remarkable” becomes the heroic “we inspire excellence to achieve the remarkable”. Even this is slightly less overstated than Queen Mary University’s, “the unthinkable, achieved”.

A triple helix of Education, Enterprise, Research becomes more convoluted with the insertion of Knowledge Exchange (KE) in front of Enterprise to make it, more logically, a quadruple helix. The Research England’s Knowledge Exchange Framework confirms KE as reflecting “..engagement through research, enterprise and public engagement.” so it could stand alone. One suspects that some enterprising (sic) apparatchik suggested that you can’t have a PVC Research and Enterprise without using the word (perhaps PVC Research and Knowledge Exchange would be a better option).

The draft suggests that the “suite of KPIs, should position us to achieve a stretching ambition of being a top 10 UK and pushing towards a top 50 internationally recognized university..”. There is much less room for doubt in the final version where “..success will be Southampton positioned as a top 10 UK and towards a top 50 internationally recognised university..”. One oddity in all this posturing is that the University’s website home page carries a statement about being a Top 15 UK University; Top 100 in the World but takes you to a page of rankings where they are shown as a Top 16 UK University. This is presumably because they think the Sunday Times is more credible than the Complete University Guide (where they are 15^th).

Not In a League of their Own

The University of Southampton is not on its own in having league table aspirations and the table below shows others in the sample of 50 who are explicit about ranking being a strategic plan objective. The point here is that if something is in the strategic plan you would expect a university to devote time, money and effort specifically towards achieving it. It is quite different to prioritising what is best for the student, the community or the great global challenges.

Many universities focus on self-improvement through enhancing their performance in, for example, the National Student Survey or Research Excellence Framework or through measures such as financial stability, attrition rates and graduate outcomes. This seems more reflective and service oriented than deciding to compete in myriad and meaningless ‘best of’ tables that have little direct relevance to students or staff. It is noticeable that universities in the Russell Group are more likely to cite rankings as a performance criteria which suggests they may be a little insecure about their credentials to be in a Group that claims members as “world-class, research-intensive universities.”

Several of those reviewed have, somewhat sneakily but probably wisely, left the provenance of their measurement to be chosen at the discretion of a future Vice Chancellor. It is also relatively easy to sign off on an heroic objective if you know you will not have accountability for delivering it. Others have nailed their colours firmly to a specific mast and may regret it.

University	Statement in Strategic Plan
Lancaster	“We will measure this goal by making further progress towards a top 100 position in key global rankings of universities.“
Manchester	“We will be recognised as among the best universities in the world, in the top 25 in leading international rankings“
Birmingham	“Our aspiration to establish Birmingham in the top 50 of the world’s leading universities“
Cardiff	“We aim to remain in the world top 200 as measured by QS World University Rankings, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities and the Best Global Universities Ranking, and in the top 100 of at least one of these. We aim to enter the UK top 20 in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide.“
Durham	“The Times/Sunday Times League Tables Top 5“
Bristol	“By 2030, we will: be firmly established among the world’s top-50 universities (draft)”
Liverpool	“…will be among the top 20 UK universities in the world rankings.“
QUB	“Be ranked in the top 175 in global league tables. Be a top 50 university for our global impact.“
Surrey	“Reach a top 15 position in appropriate national league tables; be in the top 100 position in global league“
Essex	“In 2025 we will be recognised nationally (top 25 Times Good University Guide) and globally (top 200 Times Higher Education World Rankings)“
East Anglia	“will focus on consolidating our position as a top 20 university in all of the main UK university league tables“

Cardiff’s approach may have looked reasonable in 2018 when the strategy was launched and they were in the 101-150 grouping for the AWRU (they are now in the 151-200 group). However, the most recent tables show they have failed to achieve one top 100 international ranking and their current Times/Sunday Times rank is 35. The strategy runs until 2023 so there may still be time and it’s always possible to blame the pandemic but the next iteration of their strategy may be slightly less prescriptive.

The University of East Anglia says, “We also recognise the importance of league tables and will focus on consolidating our position as a top 20 university in all of the main UK university league tables.” Regrettably, the most recent round of league tables finds them at 22 in the Complete University Guide, 41 in The Guardian, 26^th in the UK in the THE World Rankings and the THE Table of Tables, and, 27 in The Times/Sunday Times. Not one top 20 place to consolidate as yet but the strategy allows until 2030 to put things right.

One observation is that the University of Warwick, which seems obsessed with league table measurements on the front page of its website, does not explicitly suggest that success will be measured by them – its main claim seem to be that it will be ‘larger than now’. Another would be that UCL is currently in a consultation about its 2022-2027 strategy as a contribution to “maintain the trajectory established by UCL 2034” and uses league tables to highlight issues as part its discussion papers. UCL’s approach is rich in content and may be worth a review by anybody looking to write their own strategy or simply to understand this end of the higher education landscape.

The Things They Say

No review of Strategic Plans would be complete without reflecting briefly on the tendency to reach for the most hyperbolic forms of expression to convey even the simplest of ideas. It is as if the universities are writing the higher education version of the September Dossier rather than setting out a sober-minded and responsible plan. For some there is a reflex to state the blindingly obvious as if it were the musings of a Zen master:

University of Exeter – Together we create the possible

University of Warwick – Excellence with purpose

University of Strathclyde – The place of useful learning

While, occasionally, there are some phrases which just feel, um, worth recording:

University of York – collaborating unconventionally

Leicester University – we don’t want to make a negative impact

Summary

There is increasing evidence that students consider other factors more important than league tables, so for universities to place them as a key measure seems more about internal vanity than external need. INTO University Partnerships claimed recently that research shows “Gen Z students have adjusted their focus from rankings to outcomes amid COVID-19” and even Universities UK has got round to suggesting eight “core metrics” which could easily form the basis for both degree and institutional measurement . Regrettably, this has not stopped some relative newcomers to the rankings party presenting machine learning and AI as the answer to achieving transparency, objectivity and non-gameability so the merry go round continues.

Making league table positions a measure of university strategy puts marketing before meaning or Style Over Substance (a new SOS for the sector). I have discussed views on the most obvious failings in “Keep Your Virtue…Ignore the Reputation Rankings” and “Rank Hypocrisy” and it is good to see that most of those reviewed seem to recognize the vacuousness of this form of measurement. To place ranking as a strategic ambition diverts time, energy and money away from delivering results for students, partners and the great global challenges.

NOTES

* The review of 50 University strategic plans considered documents publicly available on their websites. A combination of search mechanisms and text review was used to determine if league table rankings were specifically and meaningfully mentioned as an objective of the plan. A number of strategic plans reviewed mention current league tables in their text but do not elevate them as a specific strategic objective. The author is pleased to consider any authoritative challenges to the material identified and will post updates/corrections if they prove to be valid.

**The review was based on the documents identified as the main strategic plan of the university in question. It is recognized that operational plans at theme e.g. research, or school of study e.g. biological sciences, may suggest objectives related to league table rankings.

***The review focused on references to league table rankings identified as THE World University Rankings, AWUR, QS University Rankings, the main UK newspaper rankings e.g. Times/Sunday Times, Guardian etc or more broadly as, for example, “key global rankings”.

SHORELIGHT REPORT AND STUDENT SAFETY – ILLUMINATION OR OBFUSCATION?

We are familiar with the notion that there are “lies, damned lies and statistics” so whenever an organisation throws up figures to paint a scenario that is in their interests it’s always worth taking a second look at the source data. Students, parents and agents should particularly beware claims made primarily for marketing purposes when safety issues are at stake. Caution is certainly a good approach to take with the recent collaboration between Shorelight and US News Global Education (USNGE) which includes a, so called, University Safety Index and league table of the safest States for international students.

There is no place in the world that is entirely free of potential trouble, and international students should be alert to both the joys and the potential troubles of studying overseas*. The widespread rise in hate crimes around the world and specific incidents of racism are as concerning for the UK, Australia and Canada as the USA. Reputable universities work hard to make their campuses as safe as possible but the advice to incoming international students should be pragmatic rather than marketing gloss.

There is no reason to believe that the numbers used are incorrect but the way the Index is constructed shows Washington D.C., Vermont and Massachusetts as the top three states of “the “extremely safe” category for international students.” In September 2021 these States were listed as the top three of the list for Hate Crimes per capita in a 24/7 Wall Street report using FBI Uniform Crime Data and the FBI data shows Washington D.C. as having the US’s most violent crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020. Further analysis suggests these anomalies reflect a selection and conflation of data that may mislead international students about the relative safety of their study destination.

Table Source: University Safety Index: State Safety by International Student Enrollment Percentage from How Safe Are U.S. Campuses?

Not All Crime on US Campuses is In Decline

While focusing on a comparison to criminal offenses two decades ago the Shorelight/USNGE’s own graph (below) shows that the “criminal offenses on campus” were comparatively higher in 2019 than five years before. Also, the long term decline is largely due to a fall in motor theft, robbery and burglary which masks other trends on offenses against the person. The U.S. Department of Education’s Campus Safety and Security Survey (CSS Survey), the source of the Shorelight/USNGE data on criminal offenses, shows that hate crimes, “sex-offences-forcible” and violence against women (VAWA) have increased in recent years.

Source: University Safety Index: State Safety by International Student Enrollment Percentage from How Safe Are U.S. Campuses? By Selene Angier

Since 2014 the number of cases historically recorded by the CSS Survey as “Sex Offenses – Forcible”, increased 65% from 7,955 to 13,121 by 2019. Since 2014 these offenses have been reported separately as “rape” or “fondling” with the former growing 33.5% and the latter by 124.2%. A National Center for Education Statistics summary reflects these figures and notes that “according to reports in a student survey administered at several dozen large universities, officially reported sexual assaults represented only a minority of sexual assaults that occurred.”

There has been excellent progress in reducing motor theft, burglary and robbery but the situation appears to have worsened in terms of sexually related offenses. Offenses recorded as “aggravated assault” also remain stubbornly around the 4,000 mark. Mixing and matching the categories of crimes against property and crimes against the person fails to offer clarity that might be helpful in assessing risk.

Source: U.S. Department of Education Campus Safety and Security Trend Data

The CSS Survey also shows, separately, a 47% growth in reported offenses of violence against women, from 12,232 in 2014 to 17,578 in 2018 (the most recent data). These have been registered since the Violence Against Women ReAuthorization Act 2013 (VAWA) brought changes to Clery Act reporting requirements. With estimates that over 40% of international students are women it would seem reasonable to reflect this information in an article on campus safety.

Source: U.S. Department of Education Campus Safety and Security Trend Data

International Student Safety Off-Campus Matters

The CSS Survey data only includes cases, “…on campus, on property controlled by the university or a student organization, or on public property immediately adjacent to campus.” By using this measure the Shorelight/USNGE Index removes any information about the towns and cities where international students will hope to be welcomed. This contributes to the leap of logic that establishes a league table of “the safest states to study in” which doesn’t include any city-wide or state-wide crime data.

The principle of aggregating data across a state is, itself, highly questionable when it comes to giving a student information on selecting a specific destination. The statistician joke, credited to C. Bruce Grossman, that with your head in the oven and your feet in the freezer you are comfortable on average, comes to mind. This consequences are evident as soon as you begin to consider more wide-ranging data about the crime rates in different cities.

In 2021 US News and World Report considered Massachusetts the 7^th safest state in the US (although only 24^th lowest for violent crime) but COVE Home Security in 2017 suggested the chances of being a victim of violent crime in Boston made “the city less safe than 83 percent of US cities”. Neighbourhod Scout indicates that UMass Amherst is in a town that has a crime rate of 5.99 per 1,000 residents while UMass Boston is in a city with a crime rate of 26.45 per 1,000 residents. Shorelight/USNGE use their Index to say both universities “…are located in the “extremely safe” category for international students” even though the numbers suggest the locations are quite different in terms of crime.

Washington DC, according to the Index is an ‘Extremely Safe’ State despite a 2019 crime rate which some sources indicate is 1.8 times higher than the US average and higher than in 95.5% of US cities. American University’s campus may be a haven of civility and courtesy but students would probably be wise to exercise appropriate caution when they move onto the surrounding streets. The university provides personal safety tips to international students which is both responsible and appropriate.

Hate Crime is Relevant to International Students

The report is heavy on presenting data to reassure international students, yet surprisingly silent on the incidence of Hate Crimes recorded by the CSS Survey. It was a 2008 amendment to the Clery Act which required post secondary institutions to report these incidents. In 2018 the National Center for Education Statistics indicated that 43% of reported Hate Crimes in 2018 were motivated by racial bias.

The data presents a grim picture with a spike over the most recent years which is of relevance to students travelling to the US from abroad. This may not fit the Shorelight/USNGE narrative but it is an important issue if students are to be given the most complete picture. The Australian response to international students who are victims of crime might also inspire positive initiatives to engage productively with the issue rather than ignore it.

Source: U.S. Department of Education Campus Safety and Security Trend Data

At a state level Shorelight/USNGE report considers Massachusetts “extremely safe” for international students but the state’s campuses rank behind only New York (250) and California (174) in terms of reported Hate Crimes in the Survey. The trend has been remorselessly upward for a decade. In the broader Massachusetts context even the Editorial Board of the Boston Globe has recently argued that the situation in the state is serious enough to warrant its legislature updating hate crime laws.

Source: U.S. Department of Education Campus Safety and Security Trend Data

Whose Facts for What Purpose?

It is not unusual for organizations to give the most positive presentation of their situation and the Index is positioned as a response to a situation where “news headlines and social media shares can unfairly grab attention and raise concerns”. But it seems specious to suggest that “U.S. News and Global Education (USNGE) and Shorelight — two leaders in U.S. higher education — have partnered to develop the University Safety Index” when one is owned by the other. It also seems misleading to present the item as news on a website where the branding gives the gloss and reflected credibility of US News and World Report’s league tables.

While the article is designated as “News” the authorship, data and presentation of universities looks like an inside marketing job. The writer was once on staff for Shorelight, has written regularly for the company’s website and describes herself as a “content manager specializing in e-commerce marketing, UX messaging and lifestyle brands.” The statistics were compiled by Shorelight’s vice president of data science and strategy.

The marketing dimension becomes even more clear when “Notable U.S. News Global Education Universities” are highlighted – they just happen to be Shorelight partners. There is, however, no mention that the lowest “Somewhat Safe” category of the Index features Florida and Illinois where Shorelight has partnerships with Florida International University, University of Central Florida and University of Illinois at Chicago as well as new partner Eureka College. The implication of the Index is that international students have more reason to be concerned about safety if they go to those institutions but that seems a less palatable marketing statement.

Summary

Several countries and many universities are in a headlong dash for more international students and most recently Colleges Ontario commented on the need to recruit them to fill funding gaps. CBC News recently reported on the problems for students from south Asia who had arrived to study in Calgary but couldn’t find jobs and were unprepared for the winter weather. It’s a toxic mix where students are not getting realistic information about the situations they will encounter and there is every chance it will end in tragedy for individuals as well as blemishes on institutional reputations.

Fall intakes have shown that international students are returning to the US in significant numbers after the pandemic but it is entirely possible that some will have lingering doubts about attitudes towards foreign visitors. It is, however, unhelpful to underestimate the importance of ensuring that young people are given balanced information and not lured into a false sense of security. International students are courageous, committed and deserve more respect than that.

The US should also be applauded for publishing campus crime data in a consistent manner and might consider positioning this as a competitive advantage over the UK where there is a growing clamour for better data on student-related crime. While the Complete University Guide is to be commended for giving comparative information on an issue where one in five students are likely to be a victim, action from HESA or the Office for Students would be welcome. For international students, agents and other decision makers the best advice is to demand information directly from your university of choice and avoid sales promotion gimmicks.

NOTES

* I am not aware of any comprehensive and credible research on which countries are safest for international students. Various guides exist but tend to base their outcomes on overall country statistics. The Founder and CEO of iSchool Connect based a recent table in The Tribune of India on indexes covering factors such as Global Peace, quality of life etc. It includes Singapore at number five – a country where the Prime Minister has recently acknowledged “resentment over foreigners”.

**US News Global Education was formed as a collaboration between US News and World Report (USNWR) and Shorelight but is a subsidiary of Shorelight. The University Safety Index is a reminder of the link to USNWR’s own league tables whose methodology ex-Editor Peter Bernstein, in a classic Freudian slip, called “this mythology.”

***This blog relies, in part, upon my understanding and interpretation of various data sources and media reports. While data is almost always partial in the way it is collected, categorized and presented I have considered a range of sources in an attempt to ensure the points made about specific locations are reasonable. I am happy to correct any material errors brought to my attention by an authoritative source.

Pathways to the Future for US Big Two?

Open Doors Fall 2021 snapshot offered some solace for international student recruiters in the US after the strong headwinds of recent years. It comes after nearly two years of pandemic that has seen a focus on technology enabled learning options, increased online language testing and a brutal culling of pathway relationships during 2019 and 2020. A deeper dive into the numbers suggests that fundamentals are changing in ways that will have a material impact on the future of the private pathway providers.

Global demographics indicate that future growth will be driven by India and south-east Asia with a Mitchell Institute report indicating that “India has now overtaken China as the largest source country of international students.” The majority of Open Doors respondents are now prioritizing recruitment in India – 56% in 2021 compared to 45% in 2019 – compared to China where the percentage is now 51% compared to 58% two years ago. However, an increasing numbers of international students seeking graduate level study and having reasonable proficiency in English will brings challenges for pathways in their existing format.

If Chinese students become less willing to travel due to caution over health, political factors and declining returns on investment in a western degree the problems will be compounded. INTO’s own research from November 2021 notes that agents from China, Hong Kong and Macau think that the US has handled the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out considerably worse than the UK or Australia. The rankings for the US being “welcoming and safe” are even less helpful.

Source: Agent Perspective on International Education in the Context of COVID-19, INTO University Partnerships, November 2021

The two established pathway operators with most at stake in the US are Shorelight and INTO but recent developments suggest differences in their willingness and ability to innovate, adjust strategy and move decisively. It has been eight years since Shorelight burst onto the scene with a model that looked like an enhanced version of INTO’s pathway operation but VP Imran Oomer’s early claim that “we wanted to come in without a formula” was an indication of being willing to adapt. Shorelight now has at least 17 pathway partnerships while INTO has lost Marshall University, Washington State University and Colorado State University in the past three years to reduce it to a portfolio of nine US partners.

Past success is not always an indicator of future prosperity but a brief review of the two companies suggests how they might fare under current circumstances. The context and references are in the public domain and offer some grounds for speculation about possible directions of travel.

Shorelight

Shorelight announced five new partners towards the end of 2021 – Eureka College (Illinois), Austin College (Texas), St Thomas Aquinas (New York), Southwestern College (Texas) and Wilson College (Pennsylvania). It seems a significant shift of emphasis for a business which had previously focused almost entirely on partnerships with US News and World Report nationally ranked institutions. The announcements say that they are “accepting international undergraduate student applications through Shorelight” which indicates these are not the full pathway model.

It’s always been difficult to see inside Shorelight’s finances and performance but there have been several indicators that enrollment aspirations for some partnerships have fallen short of expectations. Huron Consulting Group Inc’s third quarter filing in November 2021 show that the ‘fair value’ of the convertible debt investment in Shorelight was reduced from $64.4m (December 2020) to $61.5m. The total cost basis over three tranches (2014, 2015 and 2020) was $40.9m with a consolidated maturity date of January 2024.

In November 2021, CIBC Innovation Banking announced new debt financing for Shorelight although the amount was undisclosed. The announcement says that the money will be used to “invest in automated, self-service tools for students, counselors and universities engaged on its platform” which may be a glimpse of the future of the Shorelight business. This echoes the language of the recruitment aggregators who have been able to secure significant investor funding in recent years.

The latest surge in partners may be designed to impress potential new investors. US recruitment conditions have eased and a robust pitch highlighting online delivery, long-term contractual partnerships with well-known brands and a burgeoning new stream of direct recruitment partners could be attractive. Memories of the past few years of international enrollment declines are fading but with the mid-term elections in 2022 and a Presidential election now just three years away it could be a small window of opportunity.

More intriguingly, Shorelight may be in a position where a capacity for online delivery, the option of face-to-face study and a technology-led recruitment capability has made it into a credible prototype one-stop shop for student needs. A decent number of strong brand names, a deepening pool of price points and a widening range of institutional types makes the portfolio big enough to provide a credible breadth of choice. With reasonable post-study work options in the US, a more benign visa regime and evidence of demand from high-growth source countries there could be some attraction to playing the longer game.

INTO

INTO’s performance has been reasonably well recorded over the past few years and the new year sees the six-month anniversary of CEO Olivia Streatfield’s tenure. The recent departure of the company’s Chief Recruitment Officer offers scope for a revitalization of a top team that has been virtually unchanged for over five years. Cumulative losses of partners in both the US and UK may have undermined the company’s ability to capitalize on blossoming UK enrollment and the resurgence of the US.

Over a five-year period, where it has lost six face-to-face pathways while major competitors have been growing their portfolios, INTO’s competitive edge has looked increasingly blunted. Linking with Cialfo arguably handed ownership of a key recruitment channel to a third party after the 2020 annual report had trumpeted the acquisition of Schoolapply AG as “part of its strategy to continue develop (sic) its technology platform to maximise student recruitment…”. Schoolapply was closed down in February 2021, just nine months after the purchase.

There are few signs of INTO responding effectively to the opportunities arising from online learning. By contrast Study Group has Insendi, CEG Digital has seven online university partners, Shorelight has Shorelight Live and American Collegiate Live, and Kaplan is working with Purdue and has online UK partners. Even relative newcomer Oxford International Education Group, which is opening its first US operation in 2022, has established a “Digital Institute”.

INTO’s most recent partnership in the US is the direct recruitment relationship with University of Arizona (UoA) which reflects the recent direction of partnerships announced by Shorelight and Study Group. It is not a competitive differentiator but may be a wise first step away from the pathway model at a point when enrollments at Oregon State University offer an insight into the problems as international student mobility trends shift. Declining enrollments at the INTO OSU pathway operation are driven by a significant decline in students from China but there is no evidence that enrollments from India are increasing to pick up the slack.

Source: Oregon State University, Institutional Research Enrollment and Demographic Reports

The past year has also seen INTO announce its first partnership in Australia which provides an even more complex set of options for its sales team to manage. Diversity can be an attractive feature but often comes at the expense of spreading management talent too thinly and confusing the market. By contrast Shorelight has retained a laser focus on working with US institutions while diversifying the ways in which it can serve the needs of agents and students.

INTO’s UK and US portfolio could support a level of organic growth as student mobility increases but a trade purchaser looking to beef up existing operations in the UK, US and Australia may be better able to optimize the assets. With money still cheap and a lot of dry powder around it would not be too difficult to see one of the major global players, with relevant management chops and sales expertise, trying to find some synergies. It would also be interesting to see if the management team has enough confidence in its skill and ability to invest in itself, buy out the Leeds Equity stake and compete aggressively in the new world.

It is appropriate to reflect that demand for US higher education remains strong throughout south Asia and that record numbers of study visas were approved for students from India. For operators that can meet that demand with a mixed US portfolio offering realistic options while also catering to the students considering online options as part of their planning process the future could be bright. While reflections on the future of the current big two pathways operators are speculative there is no doubt it will need an agile, flexible and committed approach to make the most of the changed circumstances.