AlanPreece

More Pathway Jeopardy

INTO’s joint venture with the University of Gloucestershire is under ‘strategic review’ with the possibility of closure. INTO is no longer accepting applications to start at the on-campus centre in 2019, which is understandable given the uncertainty but seems unlikely to improve future prospects. It is anticipated that the review will be complete in early July.

A number of ‘third party’ pathway centres in the UK and US have closed in recent years, including Navitas at Edinburgh Napier and Oxford International at the universities of Canterbury Christ Church and Bedfordshire. In the US four CEG OnCampus pathways are closing, and EC’s higher education business has shut down with partners moving to Study Group. INTO Gloucestershire offers some insights into the dynamics at play in the joint-venture model.

The centre opened in 2013 but has struggled to build enrolments or achieve operating profitability. The most recent published figures show average enrolments falling for two years and lower in 2017/18 than 2014/15. The University’s Financial Statements for 2017/18 noted ‘the highly challenging market’ and it seems unlikely that 2018/19 enrolments were much, if any, better.

Table 1 – INTO Gloucestershire Average Enrolments

Source: INTO Gloucestershire LLP Annual Reports

The University’s most recent Financial Statement concluded that the ‘financial performance of the JV entity combined with the net revenues from progressing students, continues to deliver a worthwhile partnership arrangement for the university which enhances the internationalisation agenda.’ With the UK likely to be heading for a good enrolment year this might seem to be a good moment to double down on the investment after weathering some difficult years. There’s also the possibility of even better times ahead if proposed changes to post-study work opportunities become reality.

But as the joint venture enrolments have slipped first year, full-time international enrolments have also stalled for the University. Published data doesn’t provide insights into progression from the joint venture but as UK universities have become more competitive for international students it’s possible that more are leaking away to better ranked or more favourably located institutions.

Table 2 – University of Gloucestershire Non-UK Enrolments with JV Enrolment Overlay

Source: HESA Data and INTO Gloucestershire LLP Annual Reports

A closer look at the financial story also suggests some reasons for caution on all sides. Recent Financial Statements show the University has written off £2.8m of debt from the joint venture over two years with INTO University Partnerships (IUP) writing off £3.8m of debt in the same period. Current financial year data is not available but the debtor balance owed by the joint venture to IUP at the end of 2017/18 was £1.77m.

Table 3 – INTO Gloucestershire LLP Debtor Balance to IUP and Written Off Amount

Source: INTO University Partnerships Annual Reports

The joint venture has been unable to operate profitably in its first five years of operation despite measures to make ‘changes to the model of paying for services supplied by the two respective parent organisations’. One ratio for pathway watchers to consider is that the joint venture’s cost of sales rose from 73% in the peak enrolment year of 2015/16 to 87% by 2017/18. Significant reductions in operating expenses have been unable to make up for the resulting decline in gross profit, but are likely to have reduced revenue to the partners for services they provide to the joint venture.

Table 4 – INTO Gloucestershire Turnover, Cost of Sales, Operating Expenses and Operating Profit

Note: Operating loss shown excludes exceptional items and interest Source: INTO Gloucestershire LLP Annual Reports

A university statement indicates that the strategic view was initiated jointly. Increasing levels of indebtedness, less revenue from the centre paying for services and little prospect of a significant shift in the ability to recruit students would certainly concentrate the mind. As the joint venture’s Annual Report notes – ‘the principal risk facing the LLP is the continued under-recruitment of students to its programmes.’.

The university have confirmed that ‘no decisions have been made’ and that ‘no compulsory redundancy notices have been issued to staff either employed by the JV, or employed by the University outside of the JV, as part of this process’ and it is to be hoped that INTO and the University of Gloucestershire can find a sustainable way forward . But if not, it would follow INTO University of East Anglia London and INTO St George’s University as the third of the company’s joint ventures to close. That would leave eight joint ventures and two wholly owned operations remaining in the UK.

Most pathway portfolios have partnerships that struggle to recruit and are likely to come under the microscope when times get tougher or business models are disrupted. That’s why there is likely to be more realignment, restructuring and portfolio shuffling as the sector matures. I once heard an industry leader comment that the trough between launch and profitability is becoming deeper and longer – the question is whether some vessels are too leaky to make it to the other side.

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

SEVIS With A Smile? Or ‘A Delusion, A Mockery And A Snare’?

Data-driven predictions of future international student enrollments can be very useful for international recruiters, university budgeting and potential investors in higher education. Recent commentary using Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) data shows how visa data can be characterized in a way that suggests the challenges faced by US higher education are overstated. But clarity around what this data source includes and where it might exaggerate or diminish trends is vital to avoid misdirection and poor decision making.

The increasingly user-friendly ‘SEVIS By the Numbers’ web-site provides good access to visa data complete with interactive maps and is a popular source. It claims it ‘illustrates trends and information on international students studying in the United States’ but it does not disaggregate between those enrolled at universities and those on student visas taking the Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension which allows for post-study work. Confusing or conflating the two is unhelpful in understanding the implications for the state of US higher education.

Executive action in 2016 increased the maximum length of employment under OPT for foreign students with STEM degrees to 36 months, which, along with a booming US economy, resulted in a material increase in the number of STEM graduates staying on to work in the US. While these students hold F-1 visas (and are reported in the SEVIS numbers), they are not tuition-paying students enrolled in a US university.

To give a sense of materiality of the OPT numbers, the Institute of International Education (IIE) Open Doors Report reports shows that the proportion of OPT students rose to 18.6% of ‘total international students’ in 2017/18 from 12.4% in 2014/15. When the IIE announced that the ‘number of international students’ increased to reach a new high of 1,094,000 in 2017/18, the growth in OPT numbers masked the reality that students enrolled in full-time study in US universities actually declined year-on-year and were lower than 2015/16.

Source: Institute of International Education, 2018, https://www.iie.org/opendoors

A better guide to the health and future of international student recruitment may be provided by IIE’s data which shows that both undergraduate and postgraduate new enrollments have fallen for two years in a row, and non-degree enrollments for three. Critically, between 2015/16 and 2017/18 the number of undergraduates and graduates enrolled fell by over 17,000 while the number of non-degree students fell by less than 5,000. While percentage falls in non-degree students can look high, the number of students is relatively low compared to the main body of academic students.

Master’s Level Enrollments and Students From India

Thinking of SEVIS data as a proxy for enrollments is particularly distorting at Master’s level and for understanding trends for students from India. SEVIS suggests that the number of Master’s ‘students’ grew by 27.7% between 2014 and 2017 while IIE data indicates that numbers actually enrolled in universities grew by only 8.4%. The difference is driven by the 69.1% increase in OPT numbers (83,175) shown in IIE data over the four years.

Source:
Institute of International Education, 2018, https://www.iie.org/opendoors and SEVIS data from INTO Corporate Blog

Note: The SEVIS data and the IIE Enrollment data is not synchronous.

The Pew Research Centre has reported that students from India are significantly more likely to utilise the OPT opportunity than other international students. IIE’s breakdown indicates that between 2016/17 and 2017/18 the number of students from India enrolled on Graduate programmes declined by nearly 10,000 while the numbers doing OPT increased by over 18,000. The increase in numbers doing OPT appears to be slowing which is likely to reflect emerging options around the world and the declining competitiveness of the US in retaining international talent.

At undergraduate level, which is unaffected by OPT, IIE and SEVIS both show a small growth in students from India year-on-year to 2017/18 but this should be seen in the context of growth in Canada which had 123,000 students from India in 2017 – 63% more than the year before. This was largely driven by an increase of 67% (86,900) going into colleges, presumably as a result of the opportunities for progression to university, work and citizenship. It will be interesting to see how far growth in Indian undergraduates in the US goes when these routes seem more straightforward and available in Canada.

The 1st Baron Denman coined the phrase ‘a delusion, a mockery and a snare’ in a legal context in the 1840s, and imprecise use or understanding of data has a similar potential to lure, deceive and trap the unwary. No source of information is without flaws and weaknesses but it is also foolhardy to take one source, view or instance as giving definitive guidance. In that respect there is plenty of evidence that competitors are challenging the US, that global student mobility is changing, that demographics are shifting and that technology is disrupting the established order.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

BIG QUESTIONS FOR PRIVATE PROVIDERS

The past few months have seen Ardian purchase Study Group, Navitas on course to be taken private and, most recently, news of EC’s North American Higher Education division moving to Study Group. Between 2010 and 2014 the pathway market was characterized by over a billion dollars of private investment and a dash for growth in university partnerships. But as global competition, technological disruption and changing demographics bite there are closures, sales and realignment.

As the market becomes more challenging investors have some strategic decisions to make. Recent developments and news coverage gives some grounds for speculation on what that might mean.

Cambridge Education Group/Bridgepoint Capital

In 2013 Bridgepoint Capital paid ‘an enterprise value of UK £185m’ (around $241m) for CEG. One commentator suggested, “The pathways sector has delivered remarkable growth and profitability over recent years. Strategically the space is exciting..”. It seems possible that the future will be about excitement in other parts of the portfolio.

CEG recently confirmed the closure of its ONCampus individual pathway centers at Rochester, Rhode Island, CSU Monterey Bay and the University of North Texas. The relaunch of ONCampus Boston in fall 2019 and direct recruitment at Illinois Institute of Technology keeps a toehold in US HE. But with no further ONCampus developments in the UK since 2016 it looks like it has called time on pathways linked to individual universities.

But the Group has other options and is investing in the CATS College brand (colleges for 14-18 year olds) with the first China centers opening in March 2019. The two centers are in Shanghai and will provide a path for students to join CATS UK Colleges and other CEG options in the UK. In the UK the company’s digital delivery arm has also been growing and added Cass Business School and the University of Hull as partners in 2018.

It seems plausible that CEG is focusing on driving the CATS business and building a growth story around digital while putting pathways into a holding pattern.

INTO University Partnerships/Leeds Equity Partners

In 2013 Leeds Equity £66m purchase of a 25% stake in INTO valued the business at around £266m. Six years later the Sunday Times has ‘cautiously, put a £170m price on the operation’ (entry 876, Sunday Times Rich List 2019. Public filings show that in 2018/19 a preference dividend of £15m was paid for the first time, presumably to Leeds.

INTO added the medium sized, public, Illinois State University and smaller, private institution, Hofstra to its US portfolio in 2018. But data from Oregon State and Colorado State reflects the tightening of the US market and the possibility that new partnerships may erode the enrollments of existing partners. INTO hasn’t opened a new UK partner since 2016 and average enrollments at mature partnerships (five years or more) and wholly owned centers shows that overall recruitment in the UK is no greater than 2014/15 levels.

The company’s joint-venture model was a key differentiators in the early days but has been substantially replicated by a US competitor. INTO is focused on pathways but has the potential to build business as a recruiter of non-pathway international students for existing or new partners. If Leeds Equity are looking to move on this could be the moment where the business recapitalizes to buy out their 25% share and perhaps get some headroom to invest in new business opportunities.

Shorelight

Shorelight was six years old in January 2019 and is the only major pathway provider with no interests outside the US. The portfolio grew in the last twelve months with the additions of Cleveland State University (March 2019) and Mercer University (October 2018). Eighteen university partners mean that there are a lot of seats to fill at a tough time for the US market.

With the squeeze on international enrollment growth in the US, Shorelight probably needs to dominate pathway recruitment to deliver the results expected by partners. The growth in pathway options and degrees delivered in English around the world has made it a buyers’ market for students and recruitment agents. Any outperformance in recruitment is likely to come at a price and provoke a competitive response.

Declining markets, increasing costs and over-supply are not easy problems to solve and it may be time to look for new options to spread costs and risks. Given Shorelight’s recruitment infrastructure and evidence of success with some good universities in the US it could be productive to pitch for a high-quality university in the UK, Europe or Australia. A big name that doesn’t want to be part of the Kaplan, Study Group, Navitas or INTO portfolio might find a dedicated partner worth a conversation.

Study Group/Ardian

The purchase of Study Group by Ardian positioned the investor with the ambition to make ‘strategic acquisitions’, and a belief that pathway growth would continue to be ‘double digit’. It is difficult to see that organic growth in the US will be the main driver of the latter prediction. But taking on EC’s operations in the US appears to signal an intention to continue to build market share.

Other recent Study Group signings have been with sub-degree colleges in Canada providing a route to degree level study, post-study work and possibly citizenship. It may be a smart way of infiltrating a market where universities have seemed relatively resistant to the lure of pathways. In 2017, 41% of international students at post-secondary level, including a 67% increase in those from India, studied in colleges.

Study Group’s business is diversified geographically and has high-school/college options as well as pathways. The UK/Europe pathway business looks stable and recently announced a new partner in Aberdeen. In the US the Managing Director has just left and it may be a good moment for strategic review in the context of market conditions.

Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD THINKS IT’S ALL IN THE NAME

It’s taken a while but I have finally worked out the major difference between US and UK politics. In a field where presentation is everything there is a fundamental issue about personal branding. And in this particular department America leads the way by some distance.

The current leadership of the United Kingdom has the main offices of State in the hands of a May, a Hammond and a Hunt. Far too many imponderables, uncertainties and voiceless glottal fricatives. It’s no wonder the country is struggling to decide which way to go and so many people wish the Government would drop their ‘H”s.

Over in the USA the team is lead by a Trump, a Pompeo and a Mnuchin. It’s no contest in terms of impact, plosives and a family whose history in the United States began with a Russian-born Jewish diamond dealer who emigrated there from Belgium in 1916. The names sound like characters in a blockbuster film and sometimes have histories to match.

I could also offer Huckabee-Sanders and Lighthizer as examples of the memorable and media friendly names that dominate. But the big, bold, power-names also leave just enough space for the occasional subtler, headline-friendly option like ex-White House Communications Director, Hope Hicks. Perhaps the next British Prime Minister’s spokesperson should be considering a deed poll change to become Aspiration, Austerity or Panic.

There is such a wealth of brand-worthy names available that the President has even been able to dispense with strong contenders. He got rid of a McMaster, who may have sounded too challenging, and a Priebus, who, perhaps, sounded too much like a foreign car in an era where the focus is on US first. Most memorably he even forsook a Scaramucci because he featured too strongly in the operatic section of Bohemian Rhapsody to survive more than 10 days as White House spokesperson.

And where the name itself falls short there are some brilliant nicknames even if they have also fallen by the wayside. Mattis may not have risen to the status of celebrity surname but being called ‘Mad Dog’ was always likely to draw attention. And returning to Mr Scaramucci I can only be in thrall to someone who not only has a name worthy of Hollywood but glories in the nickname ‘The Mooch’.

Part of the brilliance of the best names lies in not being too over the top – teaming plain old Donald, Mike and Steve with a striking surname is part of the trick. Just imagine having Theresa Trump, Jeremy Pompeo and Philip Mnuchin powering through Cabinet meetings. They’d make pretty short work of a Rees-Mogg whose hyphenated Welsh-English surname owes more to channeling Daffodil-Rose than Dragon-Lion.

All of this helps explain why the British media have latched onto the dishevelled, accident-prone figure of Boris Johnson as a potential leader. He has become the one name diva of the current political generation with a unique line in hair. While it’s difficult to credit there is no doubt that he is the Tory party’s equivalent to Beyonce, Pink and Madonna.

The brilliance of Boris is that he has even been able to appropriate the nickname of a US multi-Olympic medal winner and a Golden Globe nominated singer-actress. Sadly, Florence Griffith Joyner passed away in 1998 so there is no chance of the three ever teaming up. BoJo, FloJo and J-Lo might sound like a slightly outre vaudeville act but I suspect that together they could have equalled anything that Groucho, Harpo and Chico managed.

Of course, Boris’s given name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, which incorporates a distinctly Germanic-surname containing more consonants than necessary. In that respect he joins Nigel Farage who has had a little help from the continent with a family name of French Huegenot extraction. The forename-surname rule comes into play here as well because I suspect that Boris Farage would be too exotic and Nigel Johnson too prosaic for public support.

So there you have it. In a world where attention spans get shorter and shorter the route to political success and media approbation lies in having the right name and demonstrating real affinity with popular culture. The era of Tony, John, Gordon, Margaret and David is over and we are looking towards the day, depending on who wins the Premier League, when Pep.U.Up or JuergenaImojiMe2? have a realistic shot at leading the country as it seeks re-entry to the China-European Union Alliance in 2050.

Credit: Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

More Pathway Recruitment Indicators

Detailed, consistent and up to date insights into pathway recruitment performance are often difficult to find. Some US universities give good data at a granular level and I reported on some of these in a recent blog. The completion of the reporting cycle for INTO’s Joint Ventures and wholly owned centres in the UK gives a comprehensive picture of their enrolments in the 2017/18 financial year.

For the ten entities – eight joint ventures and two wholly owned centres – that have been trading five years, total enrollments bounced back from the low point in 2016/17 but remain short of 2013/14 levels. This suggests that it’s probably still pretty tough going for the UK pathway market.

Table 1 – Average Enrolments for INTO Centres 2013/14 to 2017/18

Source: Annual Reports

At a detailed level the drivers of growth were Newcastle and City which bounced back after several years of decline and Queen’s. Long-term partners East Anglia seem to have bottomed out after three years of decline. Neither Stirling or Gloucestershire, the most recent partners in this group, have got over the 200 student mark after five years.

Table 2 – INTO UK Centres Average Enrolments 2013/14 to 2017/18

INTO centres split educational oversight between ISI and the Quality Assurance Agency with the former giving specific details on numbers enrolled and the latter being less prescriptive. While the annual reports noted above are averages across the financial year (August to July) in question, the ISI education oversight into three centres gives deeper insight into the most recent autumn intakes.

The distinction between EFL and FE used in the ISI reports broadly distinguishes between students on English Language only or Academic courses. Newcastle appears to have a significant number doing both.

Table 3 – Student Population of three INTO centres – November 2018

*Source: ISI Educational Oversight Reports*

The other INTO Joint Venture is Newcastle University London which had an inaugural intake in 2015 and offers both pathway and degree courses. At the time of launch the university indicated that ‘…..in collaboration with INTO, our London campus is expected to grow to 1,200 students’. Three years in the average numbers for 2017/18 were 381.

Recent UK pathway activity from established providers has largely centred on adding well ranked partners with Study Group, Navitas and Kaplan gaining Aberdeen, Leicester and Essex respectively. Newer players have generally picked up less well-known names with Oxford International adding Greenwich and QA HE with Southampton Solent. With the UK Government launching its new strategy for international student recruitment it remains to be seen if the cake will grow for everyone or if the strong will dominate.

NOTE: Table 2 updated 16 June 2019 to include INTO Glasgow Caledonian University 2017/18 enrolment

Academic Entanglement for an Englishman Abroad

My recent talk with a student counsellor from an American university was a pretty bracing engagement. It was all about objectives, needs and ability to pay with a swift follow up email on what I needed to do next. What I had anticipated as a low-key chat about study options became as clinical and unnerving as an exploratory colonoscopy.

One outcome was a suggestion that I really needed to get my academic qualifications verified in the US. My initial indignation was around the fact that I have the certificates and academic transcripts for all the higher degrees. They have been accepted as evidence for two senior roles at UK universities so it was a surprise to find that they would not cut the mustard if I chose to apply to a US university.

The certificates are with a small batch of papers which I keep in a hard-backed envelope and will leave the house with me in the event of a fire. Leafing through the envelope I was surprised but relieved to see that I still have the certificate from Pontins Holiday Camp confirming that I swam a width when I was eleven years old. I even have the scraps of paper which confirm my sub-optimal performance at ‘O’ and ‘A’ level

It’s fair to say that I was not the most dedicated scholar during my school years and ‘O’ really did mean ‘Ordinary’ while ‘A’ was probably shorthand for ‘Average at best’. I also have four CSEs which my peers would reflect stands for Completely Second-rate Education. I am still slightly stung by the comment on one school record that says ‘always did the minimum with least effort’ but realise, looking back, that it was probably true.

Of course, we are all familiar with stories about the rather underwhelming academic record of Einstein and Churchill. But the former’s minor troubles in French and the Humanities were more than overshadowed by the fact that he mastered differential and integral calculus before he was fifteen. Even the latter’s patchy school record can be forgiven for his 1953 Nobel Prize for Literature demonstrating “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”

I can’t claim either as inspiration but by my late twenties, having been thoroughly schooled in the meaning of discipline and application by the retailers at Tesco and ASDA, I hauled myself out of my academic tailspin. Eleven years of studying at a distance and paying out of my own pocket schooled me in submitting essays at 3am in the morning and posting them from motorway service stations, airports and even foreign capitals. Six years of summer schools educated me in how surprisingly feral middle-aged people can become when let off the leash with people they will never see again.

After all that effort it was very satisfying to get my degrees which made it all the more perplexing to realise that the certificates and my honest demeanour were not going to be enough. I guess that every computer now has the software to knock up a reasonable copy that might allow someone to substantiate claims of having a really high IQ and a big brain. Or they might simply choose to make the claim while ensuring that their academic records never saw the light of day.

My diligent counsellor advised me that the best thing to do was have my qualifications reviewed by World Education Services (WES) or a similar service. For $150 dollars they would confirm to an American university or an employer something that the University awarding my degree already knew. I’m keeping the bits of paper in the hard-backed envelope but have a sense of sadness that their purpose is almost entirely lost.

I chose to go with WES because it sounds like a real person which, I suspect, is one of the reasons that Alexa seems to have become more popular and talked about than Siri. SIRI is derived from Speech Interpretation & Recognition Interface but is also a real name in Scandinavia with the meaning ‘beautiful victory’. Given that not many speak Scandinavian (and even fewer speak Swahili where ‘siri’ means secret) I’d guess that this is lost on most of the world.

While Alexa is a made-up name it has sufficient echoes of standard first names, male and female, to sound familiar. Alexander the Great, Sir Alex Ferguson (who is considered the greatest after winning the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup in a single season) and Alex Kingston are among the better known. It is pleasing to note in terms of new words I have learnt today that Alexandra Smirnoff (1838–1913) was a Finnish pomologist – the branch of botany that studies and cultivates fruit.

Returning to the task in hand I can report that the entanglement with WES and my alma mater, the Open University, has been less than perfect so far. WES has quite exacting demands in terms of material being sent under seal and signature and the Open University form making the request does not allow me to specify this in detail. I am left hoping, without expectation, that these organisations are so familiar with the process that it will all work out.

The system seems to have largely been established for those pursuing careers or qualifications in academia. It’s an opaque world which institutions would do well to open up by making transcripts available through secure digital systems for free. These should be available to any institution or employer, anywhere in the world, authorised by the student to access them.

US INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ENROLLMENTS – PEER TO PEER AND PATHWAYS

Making sense of trends in US international enrollments presents real challenges due to the diversity among ~4,000 institutions. Looking at Oregon State University’s self-identified peer group of four other public universities is an opportunity to get under the surface. It also provides insights as to how private providers offering pathways and direct recruitment support to universities, are contributing to overall numbers and adjusting their programs in an increasingly crowded market.

It’s a small sample over a limited time but it may offer some pointers for universities considering how best to meet their recruitment needs*. Over a four-year period to fall 2018, one of the two public universities without private provider support was competitive in terms of overall international student enrollment. Where a new peer institution was added to the provider’s portfolio during the period it did better than longer-term partners.

Some universities have benefited significantly from partnering with a private provider to bring global recruitment expertise to both pathway and direct enrollment. But some have been less successful and new dynamics are emerging as the sector matures, competition increases and student numbers fall. Where a private provider services several universities with similar academic and ranking characteristics the potential for internal competition for students is likely to increase.

For the university this makes the task of selecting a provider more complex and the consideration of tighter commercial terms on target numbers and non-competing partnerships worth close attention. The lure of having a partner who offers to take all the up-front costs while returning more international students than the university currently has will always be attractive. But the prospect of signing a long-term contract to become a commodity product in an undifferentiated portfolio is less so.

A MIXED PICTURE IN TOTAL INTERNATINAL ENROLLMENTS AMONGST THE ‘ORANGE PEERS’

Oregon State University (Oregon State) defined four institutions as “Orange Peers” for the purposes of its Strategic Plan . Two, Colorado State University (Colorado State) and Washington State University (Washington State) are, like Oregon State, partnered with INTO University Partnerships. The others, University of Nebraska (Nebraska) and Oklahoma State University (Oklahoma State) do not have any private-provider pathway relationship.

A working assumptions of most private pathway provider relationships is that the university will benefit from students progressing from the pathway as well as direct applications as the institutions international profile is raised. Providers have also increasingly focused on recruiting students directly to the university i.e. not just through a pathway, with remuneration often coming as a percentage of tuition fees paid by the student. Looking at an institution’s total international enrollments is one way of considering how the partnership is delivering.

The four-year picture in Table 1 broadly reflects the overall slowing in the US since 2015. However, Washington State had year-over-year growth of 66 students and 46 in 2017 and 2018 respectively, which may reflect the early growth stage of the partnership with INTO which commenced in 2017. Both Oregon State and Colorado State, long term INTO partners from 2009 and 2012, respectively, saw overall enrollments decline in 2018.

Nebraska, which has no private-provider support had the strongest growth over the four years, increasing by 283 students or 11.2%, despite a dip between 2017 and 2018. Oklahoma State fared significantly worst with a fall of 236 students.

The IIE Open Doors report shows that between 2015 and 2017 (the latest comprehensive reporting available) US total international enrollments fell by 0.56%. All of the ‘Orange Peers’, except Oklahoma State, out-performed on that timescale. It will be interesting to see how 2017 to 2018 enrollments compare against the national trend.

TABLE 1 – ‘Orange Peers’ – Total International Enrollments Fall 2015 to Fall 2018

PATHWAY PROGRAMS REFLECT CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES

Pathway enrollments help underpin direct recruitment to university programs. As global markets change in terms of major sending countries and the demands of students they need to operate flexibly to maintain relevance. As the number of pathways in the US has grown competition for students has intensified.

In June 2018 Inside Higher Education’s Elizabeth Redden took a deep dive into pathway performance as US international enrollments came under pressure. She noted, in particular, a steep decline in pathway numbers at Oregon State driven largely by falling numbers of Academic English students. Fall 2018 data shows that this has continued along with a decline in both Graduate and Undergraduate pathway numbers.

TABLE 2 – INTO Oregon State University Enrollments – Fall 2015 to Fall 2018

Source: Oregon State University Institutional Research

At Colorado State one response to the changing market conditions has been a notable increase in the number of pathway courses and the range of academic disciplines covered. In fall 2015 six pathway programs secured 152 students, an increase to 14 programs in 2017 drove a short-term increase to 163 enrollments, with numbers falling back to 142 in 2018 despite a further program being added.

Enrollments on the business pathway program have fallen sharply over the period with engineering enrollments also declining in 2018. New programs in computer information systems, computer science and finance have ameliorated the overall decline. These shifts demonstrate that traditional recruiting patterns are under considerable pressure and raises some questions over whether emerging courses will reach the same volume of enrollments.

Table 3 – INTO Colorado State University Enrollments – Fall 2015 to Fall 2018

Source: Institutional Research, Planning and Effectiveness Reporting

At the time of writing it was not possible to find any specific detail about enrollments in the Washington State pathway programmes.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

US pathway growth continued after new international student enrollment growth peaked in 2016, with around 20 further partnerships by 2019. The ubiquity of pathways has seen an increasing duplication of academic offering and ranking status within each provider’s network. The recent closure of three of CEG’s pathways operations in the US suggests that some partnerships may begin to look sub-optimal over time and that restructuring is likely to happen in the future.

In this new world, well-placed universities looking for partnerships hold a great deal of power to dictate commercial terms or to choose to invest in alternative recruitment options. Locking out competitor institutions, contractually-binding performance criteria and understanding how to exit a failing partnership without penalty should all be considered as part of the commercial terms. There are still many opportunities for the smartest and most creative to do well.

*Data provided by universities is seldom wholly consistent and some provide greater granularity than others. Every effort has been made to make fair and consistent comparisons but any authoritative corrections or comments are welcome.

International Education Strategy – Less Haste, Less Speed

The UK Government’s recently launched ‘International Education Strategy: global potential, global growth‘ has received many plaudits. But those who believe the floodgates will be opened, with growth similar to recent years in Australia and Canada, should consider the compound annual growth rate implied. Getting from the 460,000 international students enrolled in 2017 to the 600,000 targeted for 2030 only requires a growth of just over 2% each year. A bit better than the 1.23% compound growth in enrolments from 2014 to 2017 but it’s hardly tearing up any trees.

A joined-up, Government backed strategy is not in itself a bad idea but this one raises lot of questions and is light on answers in key areas. The 460,000 number used is the aggregate of international fee-paying students (320,000) and current EU-fee paying students (140,000). It’s not entirely clear if the plan, and its £35bn target in education exports, includes EU students paying full international fees, staying with UK fees or replacing them with others from round the world.

Staying on the financial side, it was only in June 2015 that Jo Johnson, Minister of State for Universities and Science, said, ‘We are committed to increasing education exports from £18 billion in 2012 to £30 billion by 2020.’ One presumes that the 2020 target will be missed if the plan is really only to add a further £5bn by 2030. These things are easy to say and people lose track of the performance as easily as they lose track of the politicians who made them.

To add to the potential for confusion, the new Strategy lumps in trans-national education and includes ‘…education providers setting up sites overseas, and education technology solutions being sold worldwide.’ Given global demographics, the rise of English-language degree provision in emerging countries and the spread of technology, it will be interesting to see how effort is coordinated between the paths to revenue.

When people start talking about long-term growth and big numbers I am reminded of the song, ‘The Impossible Dream’ from Man of La Mancha. Visions of tilting at windmills, living with ‘unbearable sorrow’ and the inevitability of the Spanish Inquisition come to mind. It is likely to be tough to sustain international student growth over a decade or more and it seems to me that the real need is for more urgent action and targets.

It’s not as if we haven’t been here before and history does not offer good omens. In 2013 the Government published a strategy – International education strategy: global growth and prosperity – where the stated ambition to help the sector secure 3.7% enrolment growth from 2011 to 2020. On that reckoning the graph shown below suggests international student enrolment in 2017 should already be around 550,000 by now rather than 460,000.

Source:
*International education strategy: global growth and prosperity 2013 (p.41)*

This reflects another problem with long-term strategies. Those responsible for blowing the trumpets when they are launched are seldom around to answer for the failures or receive the plaudits. David Willetts MP (now Baron Willetts) was the Minister for Universities and Science launching the 2013 Strategy, but left the Government by 2014. It is difficult to see The Rt Hon Damian Hinds or Dr Liam Fox being around in 2030.

It is also not entirely heartening to see Action 1 of the strategy being the appoint of an International Education Champion. Perhaps this newly appointed Degree Czar will be able to develop and implement joined up policy which would be a good thing. But the 2013 Strategy document was also strong on the need for coordination that never quite happened as the Treasury called for growth and the Home Office battened down the hatches on visas.

It might have been better to see the long-term vision broken down into short-term targets. 5.46% growth per year in international enrolments for the first five years seems a good idea. It will not surprise the observant and mathematically minded readers that this would take the UK to 600,000 enrolments by 2022.

After that a different set of issues would begin to emerge as the global picture and the UK’s own demographics begin to change. By 2025, according to the ONS, the number of 18-20 years olds in the UK is likely to be back to 2014 levels and will continue to grow rapidly to 2030 which might bring very different pressures on the sector.

The tension between long and short term is very real and I am reminded that John Maynard Keynes said, ‘The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.’ Education is a long-term business but the needs of the sector are both urgent and important. It would be good to see the Government responses couched in equally urgent terms.

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD SEES THE SKY FALLING DOWN

Cultural appropriation should be punishable by having an acorn falling on your head. After that catastrophe you should live out your days in mortal-fear of global catastrophe. And when you least expect it you should be eaten by a sneaky but smart tod*.

Any English-person of a certain era and with a child would recognize elements of that as a reference to the fate of Chicken-Licken. They would share my outrage at finding that on this side of the Atlantic it has been usurped by the tale of Chicken Little. Even worse, the Henny Penny Corporation (!) claimed in 2011 that Chicken Licken is the “largest non-American-owned fried chicken franchise in the world”.

Naming a company responsible for the Evolution Elite Open Fryer, used to deep-fry chicken for commercial purposes, after an innocent nursery rhyme fowl seems wrong on every level. I am left wondering if the aforementioned Chicken Licken hands out Foxy Loxy masks to all its customers as they gorge on the product. And do they do a sideline in Goosey Loosey pieces or Ducky Lucky fries?

My deep dive on the subject led me to discover that there is a formal classification system for organizing, classifying, and analyzing folklore narratives. It’s pretty heady stuff when you consider that four-year olds decide which ones they like, without any guidance. But step forward and take a bow Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne who published the first version as Verzeichnis der Märchentypen in 1910.

Next time I’m asked what the Finns have ever done for Western civilization I can add this to my short list that has previously only included staving off the Russians in 1944, cross-country skiing, and being a potential punchline to any joke which contains the words “I’ve started…..”. I guess that their other major contribution has been winning the Eurovision Song Contest with a heavy metal band (Lordi with Hard Rock Hallelujah in 2006). It made Dana and All Kinds of Everything seem a very long time ago.

For the record the first publication of this European folk-story came in 1823 when Just Mathias Thiele published a version in Danish. Beguilingly the main character was Kylling Kluk, with the word Kylling being Danish for a chick. It all ended badly with everyone getting eaten by the fox which suggests it may have been a trial run for Danish TV series and smash hit, The Killing.

Out of fairness I will acknowledge that the all-powerful Wikipedia suggests that Chandler’s publication of ‘The Remarkable Story of Chicken Little’ in 1840 appears to pre-date any English versions. But the title is a typical example of over-statement and hysteria which would be better reserved for the era of conspiracy theorists. What’s ‘remarkable’ about farmyard animals getting together because they think the world is coming to an end?

More sober and appropriate is ‘The Story of Chicken-licken’ published by Halliwell in 1849. Critically, the animals are purposeful and set out to tell the King about their vision of catastrophe while Chandler’s animals just milled around in a frightened manner before being eaten. Right now, of course, this seems to be a good metaphor for both the Republican party in the US and Theresa May’s Government in the UK.

If I was seeking further proof of the rightness of Chicken-licken my clincher would be that Chicken Little doesn’t even rhyme. There is no point to Chandler having Hen Pen, Duck Luck, Goose Loose et al when the main character is a startlingly poor example of blank verse. Perhaps that’s what comes of having someone who was primarily a wood-engraver and lithographer trying to tell a tale of everyday farm animals in a state of moral panic.

*tod is Scottish dialect for fox (it’s also a unit of weight for 28lb of wool but the notion of a carnivorous ball of wool would mean I’d never wear a jumper again)

Brexit – University Challenge But Pathway Provider Opportunity?

Last Friday saw a pretty eye-catching announcement by the University of Surrey whose problems appear to demand radical cost-cutting action including offering all staff voluntary redundancy. One highlight was Vice-Chancellor Max Lu’s comment that ‘Some of the main financial challenges include reduced income due to Brexit….’. If that’s right a number of universities might be even more troubled.

In 2017/18 the average percentage of EU students (defined as EU domiciled but non-UK) in all degree awarding institutions listed by HESA was 5.94%. With an EU population of 9.9% Surrey was considerably above the norm but far from alone with Lancaster University and City University at 10.1% and 10.5% respectively. This might go some way to explaining Lancaster’s desire to set up a remote campus in Germany.

Leaving aside relatively narrow, specialist degree awarding institutions, Cranfield with 21.2% EU and University Colleges Birmingham with 20.6%, look to have a lot at stake. The broadly-based university with greatest exposure seems to be Aberdeen where 19.9% are EU. If the big brands and specialists are able to overcome any Brexit jitters the next most vulnerable English university looks to be Essex with 12.8% EU.

Table 1: Top 20 Universities for EU Students As A Percentage Of Total Enrollments (excluding specialist institutions) 2017-18

Of course, the spectre of Brexit may just be the University of Surrey’s way of getting impetus for restructuring. To be absolutely fair Lu’s comments continue, “… and an ever more competitive student recruitment environment, significantly increasing pension costs and a national review of tuition fee levels.”. That would be true for every university so it is interesting that he adds, “Our university also faces the not inconsiderable impact of a fall in our national league table positions.”

The potential for league tables to create such havoc with a University’s finances is troubling and needs consideration at another time. But the potential for a sharp fall in European Union recruits is certain to be a concern for those institutions with heavy representation and it would bring even sharper competition to the battle for UK and full-fee paying international students. In that respect the bigger brands have an inbuilt advantage and will be looking to take an even bigger share of the market.

As Brexit plays out it will also be interesting to see if more pathway operators are able to convert university nervousness about recruitment into opportunities for partnership. Navitas seem to have a head start in operating overseas campuses for partners, but QA Higher Education operates UK campuses with full-degree courses for several of its partners, and INTO have been doing the same for Newcastle University in London. It’s an interesting development area for pathway operators attempting to diversify and deepen their services.