INTO University Partnerships’ (INTO) recently released Report and accounts made up to 31 July 2022 point to the impact of the pandemic, global student mobility changes and the financial health of pathways. There are also three new board appointments in the past three months to consider in a higher education recruitment environment where talk of consolidation is gathering pace. The court case with the University of South Florida is noted as a contingent liability.
And The Tide’s Gonna Turn1
Starting with the Board appointments, there is reason to celebrate as INTO moves from being a board of six men in the previous year’s Report to a smorgasbord (pun intended) of seven men and three women in January 2023. That makes the group board bigger than the INTO Executive team of nine – four men and five women. At the date and time of writing the new Board Directors haven’t appeared on the corporate website which is a bit of a shame as two were appointed at the start of November.
It’s not clear whether the new appointees signal a reshaping of strategic direction for INTO. Annalisa Gigante started at Bain&Co and one profile highlights that “..her key focus areas are sustainability, digital technologies including AI and IoT, new business models, and building high performing teams.” Nicholas Adlam was at Bain&Co for five years (not overlapping with Annalisa) and held a number of management roles before joining INTO as “growth and transformation” consultant in 2020. I am guessing that Tamsin Todd is the same individual as the CEO of Find My Past but INTO is not listed on her LinkedIn profile and I can find no supporting announcement of the appointment.
Another Year Older and Deeper In Debt2
Turnover for the year to 31 July 2022 is shown as an adjusted figure improving by £15m to £138m but its worth remembering that the adjustment removes discontinued operations. For reference the adjusted turnover was shown as £194m in the Report to 31 July 2019. Back in the Report for 2017 the Group turnover was shown as £276.5m which suggests that the closure of partnerships and the pandemic may have halved its size since then3.
To try and put some sense of the changes since then the 2017 Report noted the “Number of INTO partnerships” as 24. In the most recent report there appear to be 50% holdings in 11 operational ventures plus 51% in INTO Newcastle and 100% of INTO SLU. The relationship with Hofstra University is not noted in any form in the current Report.
What has continued to mount is the debt owed by joint ventures to INTO University Partnerships. The year-on-year increase in debt is over £8m with the majority of the change reflecting the longer-term trend of partnerships in the US becoming increasingly indebted. This reflects the challenges facing US pathways in recent years.
How Long Can This Go On?4
New faces and the end of the pandemic could lead to a reset and INTO certainly seems in need of it. The US operation saw the return of David Stremba as SVP of Partnership Development, North America and the UK leadership team was re-jigged last year with a seeming change in focus across Russell Group and non-Russell Group universities in the portfolio. Perhaps a combination of direct recruitment contracts, in person and in country activity through initiatives like the University Access Centres, and the return of student demand from China will see a change in fortunes.
There are, however, headwinds. While the UK has had a boom in international recruitment over the past three years partners like Newcastle University and the University of East Anglia have underperformed the sector. In the US it seems that Shorelight has been making much more rapid progress on direct recruitment and has retained more pathway partners than INTO. The public and apparently acrimonious split with the University of South Florida may be unhelpful to INTO in brokering new deals.
Whether there is some merit or enough financial firepower for a merger, sale or takeover with another operator may be one question to answer. Some form of alliance with a careers/employability focused partner or building/buying a credible online delivery operation might also add some interest to what looks a dated offering. All things for the new board members to ponder.
NOTES
There’s a working theme to the sub-titles.
A lyric of hope from “9 to 5” by the wonderful Dolly Parton. The song—and film— were released in 1980 and owe their titles to 9to5, National Association of Working Women, an organization founded in 1973 with a mission supporting women working for equal pay, power and participation.
Slightly adjusted line (the lyric says “day” not “year”) from 16 Tons written by Merle Travis. It is based on life in the mines of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Several lines in the lyrics are direct quotes from his brother and father who worked in the mines.
The adjustment of figures is difficult to follow. Links are given to the source data for those who wish to investigate further and I am always happy to receive and publish an authoritative correction.
From Working In the Coal Mine which was written by Allen Toussaint and a hit for Lee Dorsey in 1966. Neither had ever been down a coal mine
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Watching the gyrations of international recruitment as the pandemic, global tensions and the rise of online opportunities work their way through the sector is enough to make anyone slightly queasy. There is still plenty to play for and with Australia looking ready to re-enter the fray in 2022 it is going to be a fascinating ride. But for now it’s time to digest the latest Open Doors figures and have a small look under the hood to see what might be happening in the pathway sector.
The Open Doors press release trumpeted 914,095 international students for the 2020/21 academic year which was a 15% decline year on year. But the inclusion of OPT (203,885) and non-degree students (21,151) doesn’t make a reasonable comparison with some other countries and when you strip them out the UG and Graduate student number is 689,069 – a 13% decline on the previous year. The 45.6% year on year decline in new student enrollment becomes a slightly more palatable 39.9% with the removal of non-degree students.
But the real excitement was around the bounceback in the 860 university snapshot survey conducted by the Institute of International Education (IIE). This suggested that new international students enrollments grew by 68% year on year to Fall 2021. The obvious point to make is that if 2020/21 international student enrollment (including non-degree) was 145,528 then a 68% increase would take it to 244,487 which is still a lower new student intake than any year since 2011.
It’s good news that several US universities provide open and near contemporaneous access to detailed levels of information on international student recruitment which allows us to look under the hood and down to the pathway level. It’s a state of affairs that Canada, the UK and Australia (which goes some of the way) should think of emulating. Meanwhile, Fall 2021 updates from INTO University Partnerships (IUP) partners Oregon State University and George Mason University show how tough some are still finding things at direct and pathway levels.
Oregon State University (OSU)
IUP’s corporate website has an encouraging graph which shows the OSU international student growth story all the way up to 2019/20 so a visual moving the picture forward to Fall 2021 seems a helpful contribution. The deterioration in undergraduate numbers is particularly evident as the university’s total enrollment falls to near 2012 levels and 2021 shows a further decline of 10% from 2020. A wider consideration going forward may be that if there is a shift in major source countries the balance of UG to graduate enrollments may change for all universities with significant consequences for year on year stability.
The situation for the INTO pathway operation at OSU is even more stark. From a high point in 2014 the trend has been almost wholly downwards with a 78.7% decline in enrollments to 319 in 2021. While the early stages of decline were in Academic English the most recent shrinkage has been in the core undergraduate and postgraduate intakes.
INTO GMU saw reasonable growth in its first two years and peaked at an enrollment of 387 in 2016. Five years of decline has seen the 2021 intake down to 96 – a 75.2% fall from the peak with graduate and undergraduate numbers following similar paths. INTO University Partnerships (IUP) July 2020 accounts show that INTO GMU’s level of debt to IUP had grown from £566k to £1.896m so it will be interesting to see how the 2021 annual report looks.
To be fair and reasonable the announcement of the deal between IUP and GMU anticipated that the venture would add 1,000 international students to the university over five years. In Fall 2014 the university’s census recorded a headcount of 2,136 non-resident aliens on GMU’s US campuses and by Fall 2019 that had risen to 3,247 so the original mission was accomplished. The numbers for the pathway suggest that direct recruitment will have helped that along and tracking what happens next will be fascinating.
It’s difficult not to note that IUP, the pioneer of joint venture pathways, has had a bumpy few years with partnerships in the UK and US falling by the wayside. Executive chairman, John Latham left the business on 31 October after being at IUP since April 2016 and just a few months after new Chief Executive, Olivia Streatfeild, was appointed around June this year. INTO the Great Wide Open suggested some of the strategic issues the business faces with the suggestion that it “needs to establish some renewed momentum if it is to fulfil the promise of its early days of innovation, creativity and energy.”
Outside, the CEO and Chief Recruitment Officer, the IUP leadership team has been in place for five years or longer. It’s a period that has seen six joint ventures close, three in the US and three in the UK, with little to match the growth of Shorelight in the US, no new UK partners and the recent addition of University of Western Australia in beleaguered Australia. There are plenty of adjustments in the financial reporting but one measure of performance might be Total Comprehensive Income at Group level which looks to have moved from £8m to £12m over the period.
With the US and UK governments setting out to support ambitious growth targets and a reawakening of student mobility there should be good opportunities for nimble operations with a good foothold in key markets to move forward. New operators and established companies, particularly in the UK, are showing that universities are still looking for support and Shorelight’s recent announcement of partnership with Austin College suggests there are opportunities in the US. To borrow from Sherlock Holmes “the game’s afoot” but whether the answer is “elementary” remains to be seen.
Note: The data is gathered from public sources and referenced as necessary. In the event that there is a misinterpretation or error I am always happy to make amendments if approached with appropriate, verifiable information from an authoritative source.
