It is difficult to understand why publications claiming an international audience continue to quote the headline numbers from the annual Open Doors release. The inclusion of OPT numbers would only be relevant in comparison to, say, the UK if the number of students on post-study work visas was added. The real headline is that US enrollment of undergraduate and postgraduate students in 2022/23 was up 12.4% year on year but still nearly 33,000 lower than 2017/18.
At a more granular level, the new international undergraduate intake of 95,681 appears to be well below the 2017/18 comparator of 108,539 and so the reduced accumulator factor of undergraduates will slow overall growth in future years. On the global competitiveness scale it also, for example, looks well below the UK’s 2021/22 international intake of “first year, all undergraduate” recorded by HESA. While the counting of the numbers is always a fine art and some differences may apply, it seems difficult to agree that the US enrollment of international students is “soaring” against the main competitors but we will have a better direct comparator when the UK’s data for 2022/23 comes out early next year.
The Fall 2023 Snapshot on International Student Enrollment doesn’t seem to give real cause for breaking out the champagne. The 8% headline figure shown includes both non-degree and OPT students which leaves the undergraduate and graduate groups growing by 3% and 7% respectively. If those percentages turn out to be accurate we can expect next year’s Open Doors to show an aggregated total growth for UG and Masters of about 5.3% year on year to 2022/23 and still at a total lower than 2018/19.
Study Group Stumble
The Open Doors release comes as we continue to see fallout in the pathway sectors in the US with the recent news that Study Group’s relationship with Baylor University has come to an end. The winding down of Study Group’s US portfolio over several years with what looks like the haphazard or, more kindly, opportunistic addition of new partners1 may also indicate a strategic vacuum as the organization comes under pressure to perform. It’s longest-term partner appears to be James Madison University (JMU) which came on board in 2009 but recent signs there are not encouraging.
Notes from the JMU Provost’s Committee on International Student Recruitment suggest that the relationship may not be producing the results required and that Study Group’s recruitment power may be under question. We learn in the 2022-2023 End-of-Year Report from May 2023 that JMU had sought other support and contracted, in 2021/22 with EduCo to “increase direct admit students”. The Report also noted, ominously, that “we see no productivity from EduCo”. At the time of writing JMU does not appear on the EduCo list of “highly collaborative working partnerships with universities”.
A procurement process was in place to appoint University Study to support international recruitment. This would appear to have been successful as JMU does appear, alongside around 200 other US universities and colleges, on the University Study list of study destinations. It may be a little early for them to have had an impact on the international student enrollment presented below.
Mind Your Language
Another action noted in the JMU Report is the introduction of an Intensive English Program (IEP) through Study Group requiring “…Federal permission in 2021 to modify our I-17..”.2 The resulting online and inperson IEP was offered for the first time in Summer 2022 but the report notes, “No students participated in summer 2022 and it looks like no students will participate in summer 2023.” Perhaps interestingly the May 2022 Report of the group had indicated “we think because there are lower-cost options, e.g., DuoLingo, for students needing to enhance language proficiency.”
Discussion to explore international online programs with Study Group had been put on hold. The overall tone looks less than encouraging and the suggestion that students might be finding alternatives to intensive English programs is worth considering as an aside. The Open Doors Report on Intensive English Programs in the US suggests that student weeks rebounded a little in 2022 but that average weeks per student fell to historic lows of 10.4 compared to 13.8 in 2020 and 15 in 2015. There seems limited opportunity in that market.
The Numbers Count But So Does The Mix
Three graphs from JMU capture the shifting winds of international recruitment in the US. Since 2015 total US non-resident students have fallen by 334 students (56.3%).
Source: JMU Planning, Analytics & Institutional Research
Graduate student numbers have grown in successive years with a rise of 126.7% on a relatively modest base of 45 to reach 102.
Source: JMU Planning, Analytics & Institutional Research
More painful is the decline in international undergraduate students by 71.4% to 167 from a high of 548. The proposed undergraduate tuition, insurance and student services fee for 2024/25 is $35,600 per year which implies a loss of over $13m in yearly revenue compared to 2015 intake volumes. More troubling is that the recent trend is still downwards despite suggestions of increasing applications in the Committee Reports.
Source: JMU Planning, Analytics & Institutional Research
Who’s That Knocking At The Door?
It does look as if the recruitment environment for the US has irrevocably changed with the shift in international student recruitment markets. Over and above that the revitalization of Australia, the uncertainty (but continuing lure for now of guaranteed post study work) in the UK and Canada’s bait (however tenuous) of citizenship have made major competitor destinations even more accessible and attractive. Adding into the picture the global desire of countries from Germany and France to South Korea and Japan to increase their recruitment and retention of the international student market and it would take a brave individual to suggest the attraction of the US is wholly secure.
NOTES
- Study Group ended relationships with universities/colleges Merrimack, Roosevelt, Widener, Vermont, City College NY, Oglethorpe, Lynne and now Baylor between 2019 and 2023. They gained De Paul and Hartford as CEG closed its US operations in 2019 and added Florida Atlantic University (as a direct recruitment partner) in 2021. At the time of writing they appear to have four direct recruitment partners and three pathway partners in the US.
- The I-17 is the petition (an application) filed with the DHS that, when approved, allows the enrollment of non immigrant students (with gratitude to Thomas P. FitzGibbon III for correcting my earlier definition).
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