Category: Education

CHINA CRISIS FOR US PATHWAYS?

My early January blog on the two big US pathway operators focused on specific examples of INTO University Partnership’s (INTO) pathway problems without similar insights into some of Shorelight’s major partners.  There had been some insights into lacklustre performance at Louisiana State University, Auburn University and the University of Kansas back in October 2019 (Shine a Light on Shorelight) but an update is overdue.  There is also some news from INTO as it confirms new faces in senior management* and some fundamental changes in its relationship with university partners. 

In the US the most significant point is that INTO has become the sole owner of what was established as a joint-venture with St Louis University.  This follows the closure of joint venture operations at Marshall, Washington State and Colorado state over the past two years.  INTO’s annual report does not list any shareholding in the pathway at Hofstra University so it now has only seven joint-venture partnerships in the US.

The big question, given that all of the most recent US announcement from both INTO and Shorelight have been for direct entry partnerships, is whether the bubble has totally burst on pathways.  Without a significant return of students from China it is difficult to see that predominantly graduate growth from India is going to sustain them.  Looking at the way enrollments have panned out in Fall 2021 suggests this could be the direction of travel.

Shorelight Stumble at Auburn And American

American University is generally reputed to be one of the star performers in the Shorelight portfolio but the enrollments reflect the harsh realities of the pandemic.  The numbers indicate that enrollments in Accelerator/Collegiate/PSE courses were already in decline before Fall 2019.  Despite the limited bounceback in overall enrollments to the US reported by Open Doors in Fall 2021 there is no evidence the Shorelight pathways are seeing an upturn.  

Source: American University Office of Institutional Research and Assessment

The story continues when American University’s total Fall enrollments are reviewed.  Separate axis are used to reflect the significant difference in volume between Chinese an Indian students and the only upturn in Fall 2021 was in Indian graduate students (about 10 students more year on year).  The decline in Chinese undergraduates begins the year after the fall in Accelerator/Collegiate decline and suggests the longer term vulnerability that American University has to declining Chinese numbers. 

Source: American University Office of Institutional Research and Assessment

The combined enrollments in the first and second term Global Masters Accelerator at Auburn University shows similar characteristics but with even more significant declines in volume.  Total enrollment has fallen from a peak of 87 in 2017 to just 11 in Fall 2021 with the decline in Chinese students driving the outcome.  Attracting students from India to pathway programs seems unlikely to make up the shortfall. 

Source: Auburn University Office of Institutional Research

Less Spirit at INTO Saint Louis University

Saint Louis University has seen a significant shift in direct enrollment graduate numbers in 2021 with Indian students outnumbering those from China.  This does not, however, go far enough to counterbalance the decline in Chinese undergraduates over the past five enrollment years.  Evidence from other INTO pathway operations has shown that this plays out even more dramatically at pathway level because Indian graduate students generally have less need of the services provided.

Source: Saint Louis University Office of Institutional Research

INTO St Louis (INTO SLU) was first established as a joint venture in September 2017, becoming, at the time, the seventh INTO partner in the US.  Between the financial reporting in 2018 and 2020 the debt owed by the joint venture to INTO had grown from £1.8m to £3.5m and the current circumstances suggest there is little likelihood of it being repaid in the near future.  If pathways are not enrolling sufficient students they quickly become unviable and need significant financial support from parent organizations.  

INTO’s most recent Annual Report is coy on the matter and simply reports that “subsequent to the year end INTO’s shareholding in INTO SLU LLC increased to 100%”.  Having lost three pathways in recent years there was probably little appetite for losing another partner. The upswing in interest from Indian students may have tipped the balance to continue a pathway while getting exclusive rights for direct enrollment of international students.

Overall, INTO’s US operations all appear to be increasingly indebted to them with even USF slipping from creditor to debtor in the most recent report and accounts.  While it is reasonable to expect new businesses to take a while to get into profit INTO hasn’t opened a joint venture in the US since Illinois State University in 2018 since when the total level of indebtedness across all US operations has nearly doubled from £18m to £35m.

Source: INTO University Partnership Annual Reports***

The most recent accounts for INTO Illinois State University LLC (INTO ISU) make quite interesting reading with the financial deal including a Promissory Note with INTO North America which allows borrowing up to $6m in operating capital with an interest rate of 6%.  Another number that catches the eye is that marketing expenses were an eye watering 77% of tuition revenue. The pandemic caused the LLC to cease operations for a period of up to 23 months, effective August 1, 2020 (the “Deferment Term”) and it will be interesting to see what happens next.

China Crisis for Pathways?

It is no secret that the early growth of pathways in the US owed an enormous amount to English Language scholarship students from Saudi Arabia and the acceleration of incoming students from China.  As numbers of the former fell away pathways became increasingly reliant on the latter which made the COVID-19 situation particularly difficult.  The $64 million dollar (sic) (and maybe more) question is whether the future will see a significant return to those pre-pandemic conditions.

Looking on the bright side might involve pointing to the growth in Chinese undergraduate applicants to the UK (up 12% year on year in January 2022) for entry later this year.  A more negative view might be reflected in the range of reasons summed up in “How Washington’s hawkish China policy alienates young Chinese”.  Optimists could point to the recent ending of the “crackdown on Chinese research ties” while pessimists would suggest that the countries are “locked in a stalemate”.

Back in 2014, Peggy Blumenthal, a 30-years at IIE and a senior counselor to its then president, Allan Goodman, discussed the underlying issues with Science magazine and its worth a look.   China had devoted significant resources to build graduate capacity, more of the professors had been trained in the US and Europe, and even at that time “the added value of a U.S. graduate degree has shrunk in relation to a comparable Chinese degree…for the vast majority of Chinese students.”  It’s arguable that the quality of Chinese universities has increased further and that there has been little to significantly increase the lure of a Western degree.

What is also clear is that, as discussed in a recent blog, 2022 is likely to be the first year that all four major recruiting companies are competing effectively at the same time and there have been a number of increasingly powerful entrants to add to the mix.  There seems every likelihood of continuing international tensions and the potential for students to be “weaponized” by their home government as a form of economic and cultural sanction.

The most prestigious universities in traditional recruiting countries have little need to worry but the early signs from Fall 2021 are not particularly encouraging for universities or pathway operators that have relied on Chinese students paying high fees.  While the growth of graduate students from India might provide some direct recruitment solace for universities this is not going to resolve the issues facing the pathway sector.  Shorelight appears to have already set its sights on building a direct recruitment portfolio of institutions over and above any pathway interest but since the University of Arizona announcement in June 2020 INTO appears to have no obvious sense of direction to face the changing market dynamics.

Notes

*Tom Hands has recently joined as Chief Recruitment Officer. He has previously worked in recruitment positions for Study Group, Navitas and Kaplan. Namrata Sarmah joined at the end of 2021 as Chief Product Officer having previously been Senior Director of Product at ViacomCBS

**As ever, research is presented in good faith but with a recognition that classifications of courses can be complex. I am happy to receive any authoritative corrections (with explanations) and would record them as notes on this blog.

***A review on 1 September 2022 showed that the INTO University Partnerships Annual Reports for 2020 and 2021 carry different figures in reporting of debtor information for INTO Washington State University and INTO Illinois State University. In the Report to July 31 2020 the debtor levels are shown as £3.156m and £5.438m respectively while in the Report to July 31 2021 (which shows the prior year as a comparison alongside the current year) the debtor levels are shown as £1.873m and £3.365m respectively. The July 31 2021 Report appears to make this change due to a prior year restatement and the graph has been adjusted to reflect that. This does not alter the explanatory text in the paragraph immediately before the graph.

India Stealing a March on China for UK Universities

Back in March 2021 my blog considered the way that shifts in recruitment volumes between India and China could have a significant impact for higher education institutions.  The release of the latest HESA statistics by UK institution have borne out the hypothesis.  Building on another theme they also suggest that the value of league tables as a recruitment aid will rapidly diminish as students from strengthening recruitment markets ignore UniVanity rankings to pursue value and employment opportunities.

Between 2019/20 and 2020/21 the total number of students from India recorded by HESA was 84,555, an increase of 29,090 year on year. 54% of the increase (15,616) went to just 13 universities.  Those ‘full offering’ universities growing by over 1,000 year on year to 2020/21 were all in the top ten for growth from 2018/19 to 2019/21.  BPP University’s growth was noted last year and is included in the table below to emphasise the importance of institutions who position themselves as “building careers through education”.

 Volume growth 2019/20 to 2020/21Volume growth 2018/19 to 2019/20
University of Hertfordshire23551575
Ulster University20401230
University of East London15051710
BPP University14851640
The University of Central Lancashire11851180
Coventry University1030810

A couple of interesting features in the year-on-year comparisons is that the biggest year on year loser of students from India at -455 is De Montfort University (DMU) while Leicester University, in the same city, grew by 780.  This could be a policy-led decision by De Montfort under its relatively new leadership or it might be that private recruitment partner Navitas has been able to help Leicester dominate over DMU’s pathway provider Oxford International Education Group.  In another snippet of pathway related detail Study Group registered a loss of 595 students year on year from China while growing numbers from India by 230.

As in the previous years Russell Group universities made very little headway in increasing their numbers from India with the University of Glasgow’s +200 looking to be top of the pile.  But unlike the previous year numbers from China have fallen away significantly for some.  The table below shows the top ten for volume growth in the previous year compared to the latest HESA figures.

 Volume growth 2019/20 to 2020/21Volume growth 2018/19 to 2019/20
Edinburgh9951410
Leeds-3351235
Southampton-4451190
Sheffield4001150
UCL29751065
Manchester2115885
Birmingham-430860
Newcastle-385855
Kings College1460725
Nottingham-750725

This reinforces the potential for changes in recruitment markets making significant differences to the potential of individual universities to invest for the future.   A stark example of this might be Nottingham where the Russell Group University of Nottingham (UN) lost 750 students from China and had 75 fewer from India – a net loss of 825.  Nottingham Trent University (NTU) saw numbers from China decline by 95 but those from India up by 140.

At one level this could be an interesting test for private pathway partner Kaplan who service both universities.  But more fundamentally level its worth reflecting that NU’s tuition fee for a Management PGT degree is £24,500 compared to NTU’s £18,000.  As a value proposition it may be that the extra 36% on the price is simply not justifiable to a student who is self-funding.  It is also reasonable to consider that UN’s decline in Chinese enrollments may be a feature of individuals choosing not to transfer from the campus in China during COVID and may right itself in time.          

It seems difficult to argue that the driving force of the India market is not going to have a growing impact on the UK higher education scene.  Universities that have long relied on their historical status and ranking to persuade wealthy, brand conscious students to enrol may find that self-funded students whose main ambition is to work in the UK after studying are less easy to lure.  Price points and graduate outcomes could become far more powerful signals than whether the THE, QS and AWUR algorithms choose to favour the rich, old and elitist.    

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

UniversityStated AimScore
Southamptontop 10 UK and towards a top 50 internationally26
Bristolfirmly established among the world’s top-50 universities (draft)23
DurhamThe Times/Sunday Times League Tables Top 522
Queen’s Belfasttop 175 in global league tables21
Birminghamwithin the top 50 global institutions in the leading international tables20
PlymouthTop 30 in national league tables Top 250 in international ranking20
Manchesterin the top 25 in leading international rankings18
Glasgow CaledonianAnnual improvement in Impact Rankings score18
Lancasterprogress towards a top 100 position in key global rankings14
East Anglia as a top 20 university in all of the main UK university league tables14
Essextop 25 Times Good University Guide..top 200 Times Higher Education World Rankings14
Liverpoolamong the top 20 UK universities in the world rankings14
Central LancashireLeague table ranking (Guardian, Times, GUG)14
Heriot WattWorld University ranking top 25013
West of Scotlandrecognised as a world leading university ranked inside the top 20013
CardiffUK 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 these12
CityTop 20 in the Times and Sunday Times University League Table11
West LondonKPI – Aggregate League table position Top 5011
SolentTimes Higher Education Impact Rankings Top third of rankings11
Surreyreaching the top 200 in THE and QS, and the top 300 in ARWU8
HuddersfieldTop 300 Times and QS World University Rankings8
Liverpool John Mooresreputation reflected in..THE WUR: performance of disciplines in Times and Sunday Times8
South Bankbeing in the top 500 QS and THE rankings8
Newcastle global Top 100 as measured by at least one of the main university rankings7
Royal College of Artnumber 1 for art and design in the QS World University Rankings. The College will occupy the same position in 20217
Buckingham New80th or better in aggregate across league tables5
Stirlingone of the top 25 universities in the UK4

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 25th 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 15th).

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.  

UniversityStatement 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, 26th 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 7th safest state in the US (although only 24th 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.

  

Advising the Advisers

Advisory boards have a long history and can be genuine forces for industry insight, expert advice and sound counsel.  As we have seen with Theranos and Enron they can also be stacked full of notable and well respected names to provide comfort to outsiders without much impact on management behaviour. With private money flooding into edtech there seems to have been an increase in advisory appointments and it is to be hoped that they will bring benefits to universities and students. 

Recent developments at ApplyBoard, THE Student and LeverageEdu and longer standing arrangements, bring higher education insiders firmly alongside commercial organizations that are trying to grow their business in higher education. Motives will differ but there is always a degree of flattery in being singled out as a “thought leader” and invited to join a group of colleagues to give your opinion without having any responsibility for delivery.  Those with an authoritative voice in education circles might also argue that influencing, or learning from, a commercial organization engaged with the sector is always a good thing. 

For the commercial partner there are clear benefits to being closely associated with reputable individuals. This is particularly so where the very presence of their names on the website, or at events and making introductions, brings instant credibility.  It can sometimes go wrong but rarely turns into the public resignation crises encountered by Pride in London, the UK’s Science Museum, or software company Afiniti. 

Whatever the purpose of the appointment it would seem to be in the interests of the adviser, the commercial entity and industry stakeholders to make the terms of engagement transparent. Advisers might also consider flagging their role at any event where the subject comes up and confirming whether it reflects any opinion on the merit of one commercial organization over its competitors. The Advisory Board Centre (which appears to operate mainly across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore) also has some interesting reading on the subject.

Apply Carefully

The stated purpose of the ApplyBoard UK advisory board is to “guide and support ApplyBoard’s expansion within the United Kingdom”. Recent ApplyBoard advisory appointee, Prof Sir Steve Smith, was billed in his role UK Government International Education Champion when he presented at a recent ApplyBoard event described as a “closed door briefing” for UK vice chancellors.    It’s entirely possible the advisory role was announced or well known to the audience but they might legitimately wonder if his role implies any views about the company’s market position compared to commercial competitors. 

Two other recent appointees to this advisory board have roles with HEPI*, which has long positioned itself as the “UK’s only independent think tank devoted to higher education”.   One industry commentator described the new board members as “smart cookies along with £3bn betting on AB and you are betting against it, you braver than I!” (sic). It will be interesting to watch how praise or criticism is allocated in any HEPI articles** about the role of aggregators and whether there will be an appetite to consider the policy questions around possible regulation.

Slice of the Pie

LeverageEDU recently announced the addition of the CEO and founder of PIE News to its advisory board. There is one other advisory member, Karan Khemka, formerly of EY Parthenon and now a portfolio board member and investor, who is also a Director of agent aggregator Adventus.  The PIE has published extensively on the aggregator community and announced Khemka’s appointment but its own CEO’s new role doesn’t appear to have been important enough to make even the “movers” section of the publication. 

Oversight or Oversight?

THE Student’s global student advisory board has gone the route of appointing individuals with roles in universities. The Chair of the Board says (of edtech) that “it’s vital that the university sector has oversight of this newly emerging field”.  There would be a lot of agreement on that but, unless there is some undeclared governance aspect, an advisory board doesn’t usually provide oversight or binding advice.

The board has representatives from several parts of the world but one of the biographies on the website is already out of date.  David Pilsbury is shown as Deputy Vice Chancellor, International at Coventry University, a role he left in June 2021, and he is now Chief Development Officer at Oxford International Education Group.  In the interests of transparency it seems reasonable to expect that Advisory Board profiles are kept up to date.

A Portal to Misinformation

The relative newness of the THE board may save it from an even poorer showing at StudyPortals where four of the nine members of the UK Advisory Board have moved on from the positions described on the website.  Andrew Didsbury left the University of West Scotland in January 2019; Ken Gill left NCUK in May 2019; Dr Sonal Minocha is now a Professor and left Bournemouth in December 2018; and; Dr David Pilsbury (the same one as on the THE Board), left Coventry University in June 2021.  If students are reassured that Study Portals is taking advice from an Advisory Board entirely made up of stalwarts from UK universities they are sadly mistaken.

Most of those moving have gone on to roles in commercial roles. Didsbury has become President UK at MSquare Media which describes itself as a “leading global service provider and international education platform”; Pilsbury is Chief Development Officer at Oxford International Education Group and Minocha is Chief Academic Officer and Co-CEO at a yet to be announced edtech venture.  Worth adding here that MSquare Media has a UK and Europe Advisory Board with eight external worthies from UK universities and the British Council – the biographies look totally up to date.

Pathways to Confusion

Senior university figures engaging with commercial entities have a particular need to ensure that their role is not misunderstood and Professor Sir David Eastwood’s appointment with INTO University Partnerships (IUP) may offer some lessons.  After becoming VC of the University of Birmingham in 2009 he became a Director of IUP in 2014, but when the university UCU union branch asked in 2018 why this interest was not declared during discussions on student recruitment, he was re-classified by the university as “non-executive” director of IUP.  The UK’s Institute of Directors state that “there is no legal distinction between executive and non-executive directors”.

There appears to be no recorded comment on motivations for taking the post or what benefit the University got from the appointment but it must be assumed that the appropriate university authorities gave approval.*** Eastwood is due to have a statue honouring him erected on the Birmingham campus when he retires later this year and currently holds 258000 C Ordinary Shares in IUP.  His current profile on the university website describes him “a Board Member and Non-Executive Director of INTO University Partnerships” while IUP’s pages describe him as a Board Director.

Slippery Pole or Path to Glory

The worthiest and most high-minded motives can be misunderstood and it is reasonable to know whether people, particularly those in positions of power and influence, have any personal stake in a cause they are discussing.  The contemporary debate in the UK about MPs having second jobs or using their position to lobby for commercial organizations is not directly equivalent but reflects the risks caused by uncertainty over motives and rewards.  As Warren Buffett reminds us, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

NOTES

Material presented in this blog reflects publicly available information with the links given checked in the period up to 3 December 2021.  If there are any errors or misrepresentations they will be amended on receipt of authoritative and documented evidence.  Individuals who wish to clarify the nature of their agreement, including any benefits received or anticipated, with the commercial company mentioned will have that information added to this blog.      

* HEPI is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity and “aim to be transparent in our funding”.  Broadly 45% of income comes from HE institutions, 30% from corporate partners, 15% from events and the rest from co-sponsored projects.

** HEPI’s work is guided by an Advisory Board appointed by the Trustees.  The Board’s role is “only to give advice to the Director”

US Rebound, Pathway Woes and A World of Opportunity

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.

Source: Oregon State University Institutional Research Office  

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.

Source: Oregon State University Institutional Research Office  

INTO George Mason University (INTO GMU)

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.

Source: GMU Office of Institutional Research and Reporting

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.

Keep Your Virtue*…Ignore the Reputation Rankings

If Government took an “experienced, published” scholar and said they would have to spend the next 21 years working only on a vanity project, the higher education community would be outraged at the waste of time, intellect and potential.  But that’s what the THE Reputation Rankings 2021 appear to be doing by having around 11,000 such scholars submitting views on which other universities are good at research and teaching.  It’s only the beginning of the problem for another dreary day in the self-interested world of the rankers.

We are told that academics are hard-pressed and facing mental burnout but that doesn’t stop the THE taking their valuable time to seek opinions about other institutions.  If each of the 10,963 respondents spent half a working day on their submission that would be 5,481 days.  Dividing that by 260 working days a year (a five-day working week times 52 with no holidays) suggests THE may have taken more than two decades of academic time away from scholarship that could save humanity.

Twisted by Knaves to Make a Trap for Fools

Despite, or perhaps because of, all that effort it comes as a yawn inducing revelation that the top five in 2021 are exactly the same universities as the top five in both 2020 and 2019.  The procession of Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, Oxford and Stanford – placed alphabetically here because the whole notion of ranking them seems ludicrous – continues.  In a world where the purpose of higher education, its value and its relevance are all under question this parade of hierarchy seems irrelevant.  

I wonder how Harvard’s reputation really looks to people who agree with Scott Galloway that higher education is becoming “the enforcer of a caste system” where “elite institutions no longer see themselves as public servants”.  Or Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University, when he says that HE is increasingly a system “where status is derivative of exclusion”.  Or to those who have listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s forensic dissection of the US News rankings, where he notes that they are “a self-fulfilling prophecy”.

There should also be an enquiry into the fact that California Institute of Technology (CalTech) is only placed at 14 in the Reputation Rankings.  On THE Student the compilers are telling thousands of candidates that CalTech is the best university in the US,  QS rank it at 6 in the world, it’s number 9 in US News and number 2 in the THE’s own World Rankings.  There are several other examples illustrating inconsistencies which confirm that the whole exercise isn’t really about understanding or reflecting excellence.

One might guess that the opportunity to reach out and flatter 10,963 potential readers and event attendees by asking for their opinion is a primary motivator of the approach taken.  But for THE to then claim the rankings are “based on the opinions of those who truly know” seems typically hyperbolic and ill-founded.  Donald A. Norman is quoted as saying – “academics get paid for being clever, not for being right” – which is an alternative view worth considering.  

Fill the Unforgiving Minute  

The 21-year estimate of time does, of course, presume that the academics involved took the weighty task of considering the reputational implications for thousands of their colleagues at thousands of universities seriously.  Half a day hardly seems long enough to do the job properly but some cynics might suggest that it was more likely half-an-hour over a cup of coffee.  Plenty of time to see scores settled, biases reinforced and best friends rewarded. 

Even half an hour for each submission would be about two-and-a-half years of time stolen from saving the world and brings equally good questions about the value of the exercise.  Each academic submitted around 14 names on average which which, in 30 minutes, means they would take about two minutes to weigh and consider each nomination.  It’s less time and attention than most people spend on selecting their top ten favourite party records for the Christmas playlist.  

Make Allowance for their Doubting Too

The reputation rankings methodology** specifically gives “more weight to research”.  This is not because research is intrinsically more important but because “our expert advisers have suggested that there is greater confidence in respondents’ ability to make accurate judgements about research quality”.  It is interesting to read that THE’s advisers thinks academics can’t really be trusted to review the teaching quality of their peers. 

Pity the poor student who believe the Reputation Rankings have much to do with the teaching they might receive.  The methodology places a premium on the score for research reputation of 2:1 over the score for teaching reputation.  This gives some idea of the importance that THE attributes to teaching in establishing an institution’s standing and the extent to which academics are contributing to perceptions about their priorities.

One Heap of All Your Winnings

It also seems that the eventual ranking is driven as much by volume as by quality.  Respondents are asked to simply name, rather than rank, up to 15 institutions which are best at research and teaching) in their specific subject discipline.  But the number one institution “is the one selected most often” as being one of the best in its field.

It doesn’t seem to matter if the twenty most eminent researchers in each field believes your university is the best.  You will not be top if enough other “experienced, published” researchers pick the place where they are angling for a job, enjoy to visit or where the overlord of research is a personal friend.  There is no indication in the methodology that there is a weighting to account for the ability of the respondents to make or offer a well-informed judgement.

Or Being Lied About Don’t Deal In Lies

However, there are adjustments to ensure that the ranking represents the global distribution of scholars.  Participants are selected randomly from Elsevier’s SCOPUS database which can presumably create a sample in line with the global distribution of academics.  As responses do not reflect the UNESCO distribution of scholars so they have to be weighted.   

Engineering overperformed with 15.8% of respondents and had to be levelled down to a weighted 12.7% while Business and Economics and Arts and Humanities had to be levelled up from 8.2% and 7.7% of respondents to 13.1% and 12.5% respectively.  Maybe it’s just that engineers like questionnaires and giving their opinion but it would be nice to think that some scholars are too dismissive of the process to join in.

If the argument is that the Reputation Rankings are only a game and for entertainment then academics might consider how wise it is to be wasting their time on something as meaningful as voting on The X-Factor or Dancing With the Stars.  But if it is intended to inform politicians, funders, philanthropists and business about quality it carries the danger of reinforcing bias while devaluing other institutions, and their students.  Next time the email from THE pops up in the inbox it might be a good moment to press delete and get on with doing something important. 

NOTES

*Part of the title and all the sub-heading are fragments from Rudyard Kipling’s wonderful and inspirational poem ‘If’

** The page of description of the methodology is, in my view, neither clear or well written. I would be happy to clarify or correct any areas where my interpretation or understanding is incorrect on the advice of an authoritative source.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay      

It’s Only Just Out of Reach*

It’s always fun to write something that challenges current orthodoxy.  It is not about being right all the time but stimulating debate brings the potential for creative solutions and better solutions for students and society.  There is also the interesting spectacle of people defending the status quo and thinking nothing can or will ever change.

Recently, Louise Nicol and I co-authored a piece for University World News which exhorted the UK to ‘make hay’ while the sun of a benevolent international student environment shone down.  In the face of a beleaguered Australia, an overwhelmed Canada and a United States where every month brings a new twist or turn, it’s time to seize the day.  Or, as the UK Prime Minister could possibly say the UK needs to prenez le grip et donne nous the students.

The suggestion in the article was that the UK should not be thinking about being second in the world for international student recruitment but, specifically, “how and where can we be first?”.   Illustrating the potential was the Education International Cooperation Education Group survey which found, for the third consecutive year, that the UK achieved favoured status – something previously held by the United States.   It also noted that this year UG applications from India were up 30%, with the growth firming up as later data showing placed applicants up by the same percentage.

This led the authors to suggest that the UK Government target of 600,000 international students by 2030 should be revised to 750,000.   It’s a big number but UCL added over 7,000 international students in the four years to 2019/20 and there are more than 150 degree awarding institutions in the UK. A further 240 colleges in the UK provide complete courses leading to recognized UK degrees so the additional students could be spread even further.

Around the Corner

Even if it sounds a stretch target there are a range of data points to suggest what might be possible if there was the will.  If the proportion of international students studying for degrees in the UK was 33% of the total enrolled (UCL is at 53%) there would have been 844,000 of them in 2019/20.  A 44% increase on the 556,625 international students in UK universities in 2019/20 (including EU students), growth which Australia managed between 2016 and 2019, would take the number to 802,540.  All of this is without counting the 432,000 students doing UK degrees outside the country which means that nearly 1 million students around the globe are already studying for awards from UK institutions. 

It was, however, suggested by one respondent that “…the reality is the UK can never be #1. One of many reasons – institutional capacity”.  Fans of Maradona, Berra and Smith might agree more with Yoda’s wisdom that “size matters not” and I wondered what it would really take for the UK to overhaul the US as the leading international student recruiter.  There are several ways of measuring it but it’s surprising how close a race it could be.

First thing to say is that the Open Doors press release and headline figures for US international student enrollment embellishes the actuality.  You can remove 223,539 Optional Practical Training (OPT) that are included (because study is generally prohibited or incidental) and 58,201 non-degree entries from the 2019/20 total of 1,075,496.  That leaves 793,756 UG and Graduate students which is below the numbers noted in the ambitious growth UK scenario noted above.

Next point is that the US has been in a period of decline and Open Doors gives a number of 225,239 new UG and Graduate enrollments in 2019/20.  HESA indicates that the UK enrolled 319,825 first year non-UK students that year, with 255,710 being non-EU so it was ahead on new degree entry international students.  Continuing to close the gap at the rate of 30,000 a year would see the UK ahead of the US within eight years.

It seems reasonable to suggest that the engine of US growth for the past ten years has been Chinese students but that the coming ten years will bring different motivations and constraints.  A four-year undergraduate and two-year postgraduate system may be less attractive for international students who are anxious to get their degree and move on to work in the country of study.  In this respect the UK length of degree study has an advantage and its recently activated right to two years post study work is more accessible than the US options.    

India is likely to become the most important indicator as China’s demographics and attitudes change.  It’s early days but in the year to the end of June 2021 the UK issued 62,500 student visas for India – a rise of around 30 per cent on the previous year while a comparative figure for the US seems to be about 55,000.  These numbers suggest that the UK was ahead by 12.8% – a winning margin that would increase the world long jump to over 10 meters from its current standard of under 9 meters.

Maybe Just by Holding Still

It is true that the US has over 4,000 degree granting institutions so its capacity is extensive.  But it is more expensive; studying often takes longer; post study work is complex; there is a reputation in recent years for being less than welcoming and the lingering uncertainty of a different political viewpoint dominating in a few years.  The recent climate and the prospects were considered so poor that at least 18 US pathway operations closed in the past three years despite being operated by experienced companies that recruit over 15,000 international students a year in the UK. 

The scale of the decline in the US pathway operations has been brutal and is no better illustrated than INTO’s troubles at Oregon State University where an enrollment of 1,496 in Fall 2014 fell to 809 in 2019/20.  The US universities that have made significant progress in international recruitment and maintained momentum during the difficult recent years have invested over the long term to build infrastructure and expertise.  But, there seems no real evidence of a widespread, concerted attempt by the majority of US universities to do what is necessary to materially increase the number of international students they attract.

Meanwhile, the UK is rubbing its hands with glee at the recent news that the THRIVE Act could dissuade colleges from using international agents.  The Center for China and Globalization (CCG) has noted worsening China/USA relations impacting student choices and there seems little reason for agents, already under pressure from the rise of aggregators, to give preference to a country that has always been lukewarm to their role in student recruitment. The M Square Media (MSM) agent survey published in early 2021 showed the depth of the problem that has to be overcome. 

None of this is to say that the US, with its breadth and depth of quality institutions, cannot find its way back towards a position of substantial growth in the international student arena and remain number one for total volume.  But having capacity and wanting the cash from tuition fees is unlikely to be enough to compete effectively against countries that are hungry for success, offer easy routes to post-study work, make citizenship a realistic goal, and which are not likely to fundamentally alter the rules of the game with every change of Government.  Neither does it mean that the UK can’t aspire to dominate markets where its quality, variety, value, visa policies and record of engagement with local agents, schools and universities makes it a safer bet. 

NOTES

* All headings and sub-headings are derived from the song “Something’s Coming” from the irresistible West Side Story which celebrates the 60th anniversary of its release on film this year.  For my money Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim created the finest musical ever committed to film.  (Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. © 1956, 1957 Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim. Copyright renewed.  Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC, Publisher.)  

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay