Changing Fortunes and Futures Across Major Recruiting Countries

Another extraordinary year in higher education around the globe and a good moment to review some of the highlights and possible future directions of the main four recruiting countries.  There’s plenty to consider as the established recruiting heavyweights fight off emerging challenges, the shake-up of pathways continues, and India’s rise as a market becomes an obsession for recruiters.       

USA

A year of reckoning for pathways with four closures each by Study Group and CEG while EC Higher Education exited the market totally.  All of which reminded us of the chill wind blowing through international student enrollments in the US.  It added to the uncertainty around a sector which is seeing changing demographics and growing competition lead to longstanding institutions closing. 

IIE reported overall international student enrollments for 2018/19 down 2.1% on the year before and 3.4% down on the peak of 2016/17, with the number of new undergraduates falling for a third year in a row (down 10.4% over three years).  For the press release to claim,  “we are happy to see the continued growth in the number of international students in the United States”, seems either complacent or misguided.  It’s fair to say that the quote reflects the inclusion of OPT (a form of post-study work) numbers in the overall count but even when they are included growth was a measly 0.05% which hardly seems a basis for contentment. 

A microcosm of the problem and its impact on pathways was highlighted by student newspaper The University Daily Kansan which showed the University of Kansas and Shorelight partnership falling short of expectations.  It indicates that in 2014 Shorelight intended to double the number of international students at the University.  But between 2014 and 2018  the number enrolled fell from 2,283 international students to 2031 – an 11% decrease.  

 Shorelight parted company with their Chief Commercial Officer, Sean Grant, in October after just over a year in post.  At INTO University Partnerships, Cagri Bagcioglu, Senior VP Partners North America, left after 16 months and has turned up at Cintana Education.  Reports of job losses at Navitas were in the news and Study Group have yet to announce the replacement of their North American MD.

Looking forward there seems to be little likelihood of the news improving any time soon.  Changes to post-study work in the UK may further undermine recruitment from India and there is already good evidence that some Chinese students are putting the UK ahead of the US.  It will be worth watching to see whether INTO, buoyed by bumper recruitment in the UK, will invest heavily to make life even tougher for the US-centric Shorelight.

UK

The world of international student recruitment in the UK changed in September 2019 with the announcement that a two-year post-study work visa was being introduced for students from the 2020/21 academic year.  Foundation courses are already doing huge business for January 2020 entrants looking to go on to the full university degree later in the year.  The British Council is predicting growth of ‘just under 20%’ across the sector in the year ahead.

The announcement lifted the gloom that had been felt since post-study work was ended in 2012.  While many big brand names have done well in the intervening years, the new Government policy opens the door for more universities to maximize their intakes.  The news built on statistic showing that the UK had already seen a 63% year on year increase in Tier 4 visas granted for Indian students in the year to September 2019.

It was a good year overall for pathway providers with Study Group picking up Aberdeen and Cardiff while Navitas secured Leicester.  Given the renewed recruitment opportunity, it’s ironic that INTO’s pathway with Gloucestershire was closed during the summer period.  With growth guaranteed for a couple of years the year ahead may be the right moment for some of the smaller players to get a good price for their pathway activity from one of the big players.

The coming year is also likely to see interest focusing back on the implications of Brexit with the probability of the Government inserting a clause to ban any delay beyond December 2020.  Plenty of reason for universities to be nervous about enrollment from Europe if students are obliged to pay international fees when the deal is done.  And there may be a resurgence of interest in new, European based campuses to try to ameliorate the problem.

Australia

The battle for the Ashes has nothing on the intensity of competition for international students, and it took Australia less than a month to respond to the UK’s post-study work change.  They decided that Perth and the Gold Coast would be classified as regional which gives international graduates an  additional year of post-study work rights.  The federal government added that student in regional centres and other areas would have access to up to six years of PSW.

All this on top of an Australian enrollment juggernaut that has seen double-digit growth in international higher education students for each of the past four years.  Enrollments year on year to October 2019 were c45,000 up at 434,756.  Despite arguments about lack of diversity their percentage of Chinese students is 28% compared to the US at 34% (including OPT) and the UK at 33% (of international fee paying).

There could be plenty more gas in the tank which may have been the reason Rod Jones and his colleagues took Navitas into private ownership with BGH.  It would also explain new kids on the block (or old kids who’ve been round the block) Camino Global Education, founded by John Wood, former CEO of university partnerships at Navitas, and Peter Larsen, who co-founded Navitas (then known as IBT) with Rod Jones in 1994.

Australia has led the way in developing transparency on student recruitment agencies, and its Government recognizes the value of the higher education sector to the economy.  One would guess that the potential of trans-national education is well within their sights as they embed their network in the vibrant Asian economies.  For the casual observer they also provide the best, most up-to-date and detailed data on international student enrollment and that’s a model most other could do with replicating.

Canada

‘O Canada…with glowing hearts we see thee rise, the True North strong and free’.  Those words from the national anthem must be how the country’s higher education sector and national Government feel about international student recruitment.  But it’s far from over because the federal government recently pledged nearly $30-million a year over the next five years to diversify global recruiting efforts in the postsecondary sector.

Remarkable to believe that just five years ago a headline of ‘When it comes to foreign students, Canada earns ‘F’ for recruitment’ accompanied the release of a report by the Council of Chief Executives and the Canadian International Council.   It provoked action and the launch of the EduCanada brand in 2016, which drove the number of international students in college or university from about 120,00 to 260,000 from 2015 to 2018.

Canada is also unusual in having more students from India than from China.  In December 2018 India surpassed China as Canada’s top source of foreign students, across all sectors, with more than 172,000 study permit holders. Each country represents slightly more than a quarter of the total of 570,000.

It’s no secret that every pathway operator has been trying to access the Canadian higher education sector for years.  The reality is that the sector had organized itself and was making progress while most of the attention was on the US.  There seems little need for outside help as they launch their  International Education Strategy 2019-2024.

Anyone who has worked in the international recruitment field knows that bets on long-term success are likely to lead to embarrassment. It’s less than a decade since Australia’s years in the doldrums, this article notes Canada’s ‘F for failure’ and just three months ago the UK wasn’t competing on post-study work options. It’s also only ten years ago that the lure of the US market was driving extraordinary valuations of pathway companies.

But it seems pretty reasonable to say that when the enrollment numbers for 2019/20 and 2020/21 are in there will be smiles in Canada, Australia and the UK. For the US the road to growth is unclear and may be several years in the building. And there remains the possibility that higher education in Asia will reach a tipping point to upset the old order even more fundamentally. Happy holidays.

Photo by Element5 Digital from Pexels