Another
extraordinary year in higher education around the globe and a good moment to
review some of the highlights and possible future directions of the main four
recruiting countries. There’s plenty to consider
as the established recruiting heavyweights fight off emerging challenges, the shake-up
of pathways continues, and India’s rise as a market becomes an obsession for
recruiters.
USA
A year of
reckoning for pathways with four closures each by Study Group and CEG while EC
Higher Education exited the market totally.
All of which reminded us of the chill wind blowing through international
student enrollments in the US. It added to
the uncertainty around a sector which is seeing changing demographics and growing
competition lead to longstanding institutions closing.
IIE
reported overall international student enrollments for 2018/19 down 2.1% on the
year before and 3.4% down on the peak of 2016/17, with the number of new
undergraduates falling for a third year in a row (down 10.4% over three years). For the press release to claim,
“we are happy to see the continued growth in the number of
international students in the United States”, seems either complacent or
misguided. It’s fair to say that the
quote reflects the inclusion of OPT (a form of post-study work) numbers in the
overall count but even when they are included growth was a measly 0.05% which
hardly seems a basis for contentment.
A microcosm
of the problem and its impact on pathways was highlighted by student newspaper The University
Daily Kansan which
showed the University of Kansas and Shorelight partnership falling short of
expectations. It indicates that in 2014
Shorelight intended to double the number of international students at the
University. But between 2014 and
2018 the number enrolled fell from 2,283 international students to 2031 – an 11% decrease.
Shorelight parted company with their Chief
Commercial Officer, Sean Grant, in October after just over a year in post. At INTO University Partnerships, Cagri
Bagcioglu, Senior VP Partners North America, left after 16 months and has
turned up at Cintana Education. Reports
of job losses at Navitas were in the news and Study Group have yet to announce the
replacement of their North American MD.
Looking
forward there seems to be little likelihood of the news improving any time soon. Changes to post-study work in the UK may further
undermine recruitment from India and there is already good evidence that some Chinese
students are putting the UK ahead of the US.
It will be worth watching to see whether INTO, buoyed by bumper
recruitment in the UK, will invest heavily to make life even tougher for the US-centric
Shorelight.
UK
The world
of international student recruitment in the UK changed in September 2019 with
the announcement
that a two-year post-study work visa was being introduced for students from
the 2020/21 academic year. Foundation
courses are already doing huge business for January 2020 entrants looking to go
on to the full university degree later in the year. The British Council is predicting growth of ‘just under 20%’ across
the sector in the year ahead.
The announcement lifted the gloom that had been felt since
post-study work was ended in 2012. While
many big brand names have done well in the intervening years, the new
Government policy opens the door for more universities to maximize their
intakes. The news built on statistic
showing that the UK had already seen a
63% year on year increase in Tier 4 visas granted for Indian students in
the year to September 2019.
It was a
good year overall for pathway providers with Study Group picking up Aberdeen
and Cardiff while Navitas secured Leicester.
Given the renewed recruitment opportunity, it’s ironic that INTO’s
pathway with Gloucestershire was closed during the summer period. With growth guaranteed for a couple of years
the year ahead may be the right moment for some of the smaller players to get a
good price for their pathway activity from one of the big players.
The coming year is also likely to see interest focusing back
on the implications of Brexit with the probability of the Government inserting a
clause to ban any delay beyond December 2020. Plenty of reason for universities to be
nervous about enrollment from Europe if students are obliged to pay
international fees when the deal is done.
And there may be a resurgence of interest in new, European based
campuses to try to ameliorate the problem.
Australia
The battle for the Ashes has nothing on the intensity of
competition for international students, and it took
Australia less than a month to respond to the UK’s post-study work
change. They decided that Perth and the
Gold Coast would be classified as regional which gives international graduates an
additional year of post-study work
rights. The federal government added
that student in regional centres and other areas would have access to up to six
years of PSW.
All this on top of an Australian enrollment juggernaut that
has seen double-digit growth in international higher education students for
each of the past four years. Enrollments
year on year to October 2019 were c45,000 up at 434,756. Despite arguments
about lack of diversity their percentage of Chinese students is 28%
compared to the US at 34% (including OPT) and the UK at 33% (of international
fee paying).
There could be plenty more gas in the tank which may have
been the reason Rod Jones and his colleagues took
Navitas into private ownership with BGH.
It would also explain new kids on the block (or old kids who’ve been
round the block) Camino
Global Education, founded by John Wood,
former CEO of university partnerships at Navitas, and Peter Larsen, who
co-founded Navitas (then known as IBT) with Rod Jones in 1994.
Australia has led the way in developing transparency on student
recruitment agencies, and its Government
recognizes the value of the higher education sector to the economy. One would guess that the potential of trans-national
education is well within their sights as they embed their network in the
vibrant Asian economies. For the casual
observer they also provide the best, most up-to-date and detailed data on international
student enrollment and that’s a model most other could do with replicating.
Canada
‘O Canada…with glowing hearts we see thee rise, the True
North strong and free’. Those words from
the
national anthem must be how the country’s higher education sector and
national Government feel about international student recruitment. But it’s far from over because the federal
government recently
pledged nearly $30-million a year over the next five years to diversify
global recruiting efforts in the postsecondary sector.
Remarkable to believe that just
five years ago a headline of ‘When it comes to foreign students, Canada
earns ‘F’ for recruitment’ accompanied the release of a report by the Council of Chief Executives and the Canadian International Council. It provoked action and the launch of the
EduCanada brand in 2016, which drove the number of international students in
college or university from about 120,00 to 260,000 from 2015 to 2018.
Canada is also unusual in having more students from India
than from China. In December 2018 India
surpassed China as Canada’s top source of foreign students, across all sectors,
with more than 172,000 study permit holders. Each country represents slightly
more than a quarter of the total of 570,000.
It’s no secret that every pathway operator has been trying to access the Canadian higher education sector for years. The reality is that the sector had organized itself and was making progress while most of the attention was on the US. There seems little need for outside help as they launch their International Education Strategy 2019-2024.
Anyone who has worked in the international recruitment field knows that bets on long-term success are likely to lead to embarrassment. It’s less than a decade since Australia’s years in the doldrums, this article notes Canada’s ‘F for failure’ and just three months ago the UK wasn’t competing on post-study work options. It’s also only ten years ago that the lure of the US market was driving extraordinary valuations of pathway companies.
But it seems pretty reasonable to say that when the enrollment numbers for 2019/20 and 2020/21 are in there will be smiles in Canada, Australia and the UK. For the US the road to growth is unclear and may be several years in the building. And there remains the possibility that higher education in Asia will reach a tipping point to upset the old order even more fundamentally. Happy holidays.
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