Tag: highereducation

GOLDEN YEARS OR ASHES TO ASHES

Seeing the THE claiming that their Awards are the ‘Oscars of the education sector’ reminded me that the the first documented use of the term, by columnist Sidney Skolsky in 1934, came because he said, “The snobbery of that particular Academy Award annoyed me.”  We are well into the Awards season and having already had The PIEoneer Awards with 124 Finalists across 19 categories the THE Awards may not be trying hard enough with only 123 finalists across 20 categories*.  Several other organizations are getting on the Awards bandwagon, but life is short so the focus here is on the late-November THE celebration which has switched from the 5-star Grosvenor to the 4-star Hilton London Metropole.

I TURNED MYSELF TO FACE ME**

It would be fun to have Ricky Gervais turn his gimlet eye on the people at the tables and adopt his very best Golden Globes approach, “this is the last time I’m hosting these awards so I don’t care anymore. I’m joking, I never did…..Let’s go out with a bang. Let’s have a laugh at your expense, shall we?”  The THE Awards are certainly the subject of a great deal of chest-beating beforehand at even being listed but maybe as Ed Sheeran’s recently commented about such nights, “The room is filled with resentment….it’s just lots of people wanting other people to fail.”  Unlike the Oscars, almost all the finalists decide to put themselves forward as the most worthy so perhaps, in a spirit of post-pandemic collaboration, it would be better to have a new rule that you can only nominate another person or institution. 

The THE would have been better to liken these awards to the Emmys*** where the main award winner this year was a vaguely comedic institution desperately trying to regain its place alongside the giants of the game.   In a strange twist of fate, of the several nominees for the 2021 THE University of the Year, none is higher ranked in this year’s THE World Rankings than it was last year or in 2015. Success in league table rankings seems less important to the judges than the institutions themselves.

For those who are grasping for the popular culture reference, the Amazon Prime series “Ted Lasso” was a serial winner at this weekend’s Emmys****.  It features a football manager who knows nothing about the game, a foul mouthed, past his prime “lord of darkness” feared by all and an owner who set out to deliberately ruin the club.  These might be considered good metaphors for the worst of institutional management, the vagaries of research leadership and the government’s attitude to higher education. 

I would personally welcome the Lasso, Kent and Welton Awards but if the theme has to stay with education and real people it would have been good for the THE to call them “Ronnies” after Lord Ron Dearing, whose name was attached to the THE Lifetime Achievement Award until 2018.  Anyone fortunate enough to win twice could start their speech by saying something about having Two Ronnies.*****  It would be a treat to see what could be made of the Awards being a load of ‘bill ‘ooks’.   

Unfortunately, Lord Ron’s name disappeared from the Award in 2019 and as far as I know it wasn’t because someone had won it three times and been allowed to keep it as per Brazil and the Jules Rimet Trophy******.  Perhaps his seminal report of 1997 was no longer seen as quite modern enough but 2019 was also the year private equity group Inflexion Pvt. Equity Partners LLP acquired the THE.  I don’t see much chance of the Sir Philip Augar Awards any time soon but with Gavin Williamson being touted for a knighthood anything must be possible.

THE STREAM OF WARM IMPERMANENCE

The loss of the Dearing Award is one sign that the THE Awards might be a mirror for the changing face of UK higher education.  For example, 2019 should probably be known as the Year of the Technocrats (or Revenge of the Registry) with a whole new slew of awards for Excellence in Registry Services, Outstanding Estates Strategy, Outstanding Financial Performance, Outstanding Library Team, Outstanding Strategic Planning Team and Outstanding Marketing/Communications Team. 

Registry, Financial Performance and Strategic Planning were dropped the following year but perhaps they were just too busy to buy enough tables at the dinner or already got their invitations from anxious to please private sector providers. 2019 was also the year of 23 Award categories which was up from the 18 in 2011.  Inflation of 28% in categories but at least another five tables of ten to be sold to “nominated” universities considering attending the glittering occasion.

Outstanding Support for Early Career Researchers was lost in 2015 which seems a shame because they seem to get a pretty raw deal and their seniors don’t feel recognized for the mentoring they do.  The Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year was the successor category from 2016 but it doesn’t seem to capture the notion that the whole institution should be involved in this fundamental aspect of university business. 

Colleagues who know about these things will also be nodding wisely at the fact that there is no place specifically for Careers Advice and Guidance Departments in the Awards.  It’s a neglected backwater for most universities and Tribal research suggests institutions spend ten times as much on international recruitment as helping students get job.  So the Awards recognize where the main non-academic funding goes which is big shiny new buildings (Estates), slick, shiny new enrollment campaigns (MarComms) and the very expensive headache that is an academic library.

Sponsors, as you would expect, also tend to put their money where the best return might be.  It is surely no coincidence that Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community has had only one year sponsored out of the last ten whereas the NCEE seems to own the Outstanding Entrepreneurial University category.  Elsevier seems to have switched horses having backed the Art, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of the Year 2017 and 2018 but plumping for the STEM equivalent since 2019.

There is something depressingly obvious about the categories and the impression they give of a sector stuck in a time warp.  The Widening Participation or Outreach Initiative of the Year has not been won by a Russell Group university since Sheffield in 2014 and the Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community category this year can only claim a partial nominee in the University of Nottingham’s partnership with Nottingham Trent.  The Group talks a lot about its intentions and efforts that it seems surprising that members are not quite breaking through.

The Outstanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Award was launched last year with six nominees coming from universities ranked below 42nd in the UK by the THE’s own world rankings.  It’s good to see St Andrews flying the flag for the both the Russell Group and globally ranked UK top ten institutions this year but it’s another area where the “best universities” don’t seem to be establishing their credentials.

HOW THE OTHERS MUST SEE THE FAKER

Like the THE’s Impact ratings, the Awards ceremony tends to reward institutions and people who take time to promote themselves and who may see it as the key to obtaining more resources or students. Some entrants may also see them as a gateway to a new job, a new honour or a way of cementing a reputation as a guru of the sector.  The ceremonies themselves make money, big service providers can entertain their prospective and current clients, and the event manager sucks the goodwill into its bank of favours for future profitable enterprises.

Nothing wrong with any of that in a commercial sense and many industries do it.  But if higher education wants to stop being considered the same as accounting, retailing and restaurants it may want to consider how it responds to the lure of a commercial company offering small baubles of fame.  There’s plenty of scope for Universities UK or another industry-led body to run a sector wide Awards ceremony and I suspect that the THE would find it difficult not to become a sponsor and report on the winners.  Just a thought.  

Notes

* Apologies if there is any miscount here but like Ricky Gervais – I really don’t care😊  The THE says “seventy-eight institutions and teams” but I think it’s nice to count the individual finalists as well.

**Sharp eyed readers of a certain generation and sensibility will have recognized the sub-titles as lines from David Bowie’s wonderful song Changes which features on Hunky Dory – one of the few flawless albums.  The title is of course two Bowie song titles.

*** The Emmys are awarded by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.  The name Emmy derives from Immy, a nickname for image orthicon, a camera tube used in television.  More interestingly the acronym of the awarding organization’s name is SATAN backward.

**** I recognize that The Crown is considered the winner of the main awards but a series about palace intrigue, privilege, insensitivity to public opinion and personal spite feels too close to the mark for comfort. The fabrication of history and sensationalising of complex issues involving real people also does not recommend it to me.

***** For readers outside the UK “The Two Ronnies was a comedy sketch show featuring Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker that ran in the UK from 1971 to 1987.  One of the most beloved sketches (and the link here) featured a hardware store where a customer sought items and was misunderstood by the shop owner.

******  The Jules Rimet Trophy was the original prize for winning the FIFA World Cup. Originally called “Victory”, but generally known simply as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde, it was renamed in 1946 to honour the FIFA President Jules Rimet. Famously, the trophy was stolen during the World Cup in the UK in 1966 but was found seven days later by a black and white mongrel dog named Pickles. The Brazilian team won the tournament for the third time in 1970, allowing them to keep the real trophy in perpetuity, as had been stipulated by Jules Rimet in 1930.  The trophy was stolen in 1983 and never recovered.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

From pathway to runway and lift off for employability

Louise Nicol and Alan Preece  First published in University World News 17 July 2021

Pathway operators are becoming the unlikely force behind new initiatives in international student graduate employability. It is a phenomenon that deserves some applause since it reflects the needs of students, but it begs the question as to why universities are not doing the heavy lifting in an area that is critical for national competitiveness in the post-pandemic world.

The answers suggest that it may be time for more radical solutions to careers guidance and advice services.

CareerAhead (Study Group), CareerFirst (INTO University Partnerships), Career Core (Kaplan), Career Accelerator (Shorelight) and Professional (Navitas) are all variations on the same theme. Some are costlier and have more guarantees than others.

It is early days and this may just represent an opportunist response to student concerns in a period of economic uncertainty, rather than a long-term plan to support graduate employment. Serious, smart and strategic operators should be building in robust longitudinal measurement of job placements, career progression and comparative performance.

It is no secret that international students are highly focused on the return on investment they get from their expenditure on a degree overseas.

In 2016, Hobsons research indicated that four in 10 (40%) said they would go where there is high demand for employees and 38% would choose their study destination based on expected high earnings associated with the industry for which their degree prepares them. A 2021 QS study of students interested in studying in the US showed 54% said a high graduate employment rate was the most important metric they considered.

Failure to support graduate outcomes

The pathway providers’ decision to take the initiative in this area may suggest that they have given up on the notion that their university partners are willing to provide what international students need or are capable of doing so.

One of the big selling points of the pathway providers has always been that, on arrival, students are “students of the university” with access to all the resources and facilities of the hosting institution. Any reasonable person would think that includes the careers advice and guidance services which are the institution’s go-to resource for helping students get jobs.

Another underlying dichotomy is that the implicit purpose of getting a degree is that it is a route to having more choice in the career one follows. The need for private providers to charge extra money to ensure appropriate levels of support reflects the broader truth that a degree is no longer enough.

Institutions would do well to consider how this will begin to change the return-on-investment calculation made by students when choosing a university.

Universities may also be hoping that, just as they have handed their brands over to pathway providers and allow them to directly recruit students, they will not have to invest further in careers advice and guidance.

The low level of investment by the sector in graduate outcomes was laid bare by research from Tribal/iGraduate which showed that universities are spending over nine times as much on marketing as they are on career advice and support.

This is aligned with a collapse in data gathering around graduate outcomes that means decent comparative information from the UK’s Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) will not emerge until 2023 – six years since the last meaningful data.

Even when the HESA numbers do arrive they are highly unlikely to provide any genuine insights into the outcomes of the 75% or more of international students who plan to return to their home country. If employability is to be a key battleground for countries, universities and pathway providers to prove their worth, this is a significant gap in data on which to build a reputation.

Alternative data collecting models are already being used by forward-thinking universities and demonstrate where individual universities are able to make a difference for their graduates.

Outsourcing careers services to meet need

Leading industry commentators have argued that “career services must die” and that would seem increasingly true, given the lacklustre support that most are able or willing to give to international students.

There is a real need for institutions to rethink their performance criteria and even for governments with ambitious international student recruitment targets to consider how national reputations can be made or broken. This may even be a good moment for higher education to pass their graduate and careers advice investment to private providers who are able to deliver both genuine support and an accurate measurement of performance.

It may seem radical, but there is evidence that career progress has become a highly nuanced, technologically advanced and competitive business where increasing numbers of graduates need every piece of support they can get.

It is clear that the world of work has become as oriented towards aggregators like ZipRecruiter, Indeed and others. Universities need good quality information to be able to orient their academic offerings to the changing needs of the market, but there is no reason to expect them to be experts in services to secure employment.

Outsourcing non-core business such as accommodation, pre-degree teaching and maintenance has come a long way and seen some substantial gains for the sector. Focusing on teaching, research and social impact is plenty for most institutions to be considering and the pace of change required when it comes to ancillary services will always be secondary to these core activities. There is a certain symmetry in providers of pathways to degree level education also becoming the runway to career success.

It could lead to the tantalising possibility of private providers also taking over aspects of alumni relations with a focus on networking to build job prospects rather than seeing development and fundraising as the point of staying in touch with ex-students.

It is only a short step from that to building and recruiting to boot camps and re-skilling and upskilling short courses. With imagination, ingenuity, care and private investment this might even become a radical reinvention of lifelong learning led by private providers to meet the skills requirements of ‘Global Britain’.

Louise Nicol is founder of Asia Careers Group SDN BHD, and Alan Preece is an expert in global education, business transformation and operational management and runs the blogging site View from a Bridge.

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

Graduate job recruitment – From fish in a barrel to go fish

Louise Nicol and Alan Preece First printed in University World News 03 July 2021

The graduate jobs outlook still looks bleak for students who graduated earlier this year and for those graduating in the summer. Just-in-time recruitment, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, digitisation and artificial intelligence are all combining against the background of a global pandemic and economic recession.

In response and as we emerge from COVID-19, we see a new breed of careers information advice and guidance better suited to the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous or ‘VUCA’ world we find ourselves in.

It was not too long ago that thousands of students attended face-to-face graduate fairs with numerous graduate employers in a bid to land their dream job. It was a scenario that was reminiscent of the early 1900s phrase ‘shooting fish in a barrel’ because nobody could miss – employers knew where the students would be and the students knew where to go to get a job.

But when nobody can travel and there are fewer jobs, the game changes and is more like the guessing, bluffing and occasional skill associated with the card game ‘Go Fish’.

In the United Kingdom in 2020, at least 30% of university students lost a job or an offer of a job between March and April after the sharpest monthly increase in unemployment on record. At the same time, competition for graduate jobs is at an all-time high: With graduate job openings falling by 77% since the beginning of the year, there are on average 100 graduates vying for every role.

At least 20% of Britain’s biggest employers have suspended their graduate recruitment selection processes and stopped making graduate job offers and experts say the true scale of the damage inflicted on new graduates will not be fully realised until next year.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has warned that graduate overqualification has reached “saturation point” and squeezes lower-qualified workers out of jobs. It has bemoaned the crude approach to addressing the UK’s poor productivity growth with a “conveyor belt of graduates”.

There are fears that the situation is unsustainable, given that the government estimates that 45% of university graduates will not earn enough to repay their student loans.

The situation is no better elsewhere in the world: according to the Institute of Student Employers’ summer 2020 report, COVID-19: Global impacts on graduate recruitment, the pandemic is having a profound and damaging impact on the global economy. Many countries are reporting dramatic rises in levels of unemployment and there is growing evidence that these changes are having a disproportionate impact on young people.

The report explores how these economic changes are impacting graduate recruitment in 21 countries, with results broadly reflecting the issues in the UK graduate jobs market.

Career services must die

The solutions are challenging, but were foreshadowed in 2013 by Andy Chan, vice president for innovation and career development at Wake Forest University. He gave a TEDx talk, “Career Services Must Die”, where he challenged colleges and universities to completely rethink the traditional delivery of career services. Seven years later, he did an update.

He says: “Sadly, not much has changed at the majority of college campuses; career services continue on pretty much as before – with dissatisfied students, alumni and employers having to struggle on their own. True breakthroughs in career services will come when higher education embraces career as part of its academic core instead of a fringe student affairs offering.”

The reality is that some universities have been treading water as far as careers education is concerned, but now we do see a sudden shift. As is often the way, necessity is the mother of invention.

Changing careers education

There is and will always be a place for face-to-face or virtual careers fairs, CV workshops, mock interviews and assessments, but it seems like the stage is now set for innovation and out of the box thinking.

So here are some thoughts on reinventing careers education at university:

• First and foremost, careers information advice and guidance should be for all students, regardless of disability, ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion or sexual orientation, whichever country they are from or heading to post-graduation.

• Careers guidance needs to be well informed by robust graduate outcomes data and insight, graduate destinations, benchmarked employability metrics and up-to-date labour market information for both the country of study and also for major overseas student markets, for example, China, India and the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region.

• It will be important to personalise careers information advice and guidance and establish from the outset where in the world students are looking for their first job, for example, in their country of study or elsewhere. Careers advice will differ depending on their preference. It is likely that Asia will bounce back from the recession far quicker than Europe, so could there be exciting opportunities for graduates from other regions further afield.

• There will be a need to manage student expectations because in the present situation they may not initially walk into their dream job. However, a stop gap role working in an alternative industry or non-graduate job may provide them with valuable experience. In fact, speaking to many graduate recruiters in both Asia and the UK, many focus more on a candidate’s part-time work than they do on their degree during interviews.

• Widening graduates’ horizons is essential, for example, finance roles are not just available in banks. In Malaysia, oil and gas giant Shell employs over 1,000 accountants. For many employers, degree discipline is less important than one would think. They are looking at a level of education, but more importantly an attitude and resilience, which should be available in abundance in today’s graduates who have survived the pandemic and gained their degree.

• Students need to be given techniques and tips to find jobs that are not advertised, obvious or may not even exist yet. Effective account mapping and outreach to hiring managers and section managers could be a way of securing a job that has not even been advertised. This year’s graduates are going to have to be ‘job makers’ not just ‘job takers’.

• Students will have to think out of the box and commit time and energy to their own enterprise, join the gig economy and-or become a freelancer. This requires a different set of skills and commercial acumen that most employers find desirable in new recruits.

So, this and next year’s job search for both employers and graduates will, unfortunately, not be like ‘shooting fish in a barrel’. It will require new skills and a new way of thinking and navigating complex labour markets and employer needs.

Like ‘Go Fish’, you will be dealt your hand and must bring your wit, ability and judgement to bear to compete with other graduates in a fiercely competitive market.

For higher education, a focus more on employability alongside increasing resources in this vital area of development will not only add value to their students at a time when many are increasingly questioning the value for money of their tuition fees, but also equip them with new, more innovative skills to be successful in a VUCA world.

Alan Preece is an expert in global education, business transformation and operational management and runs the blogging site View from a Bridge and Louise Nicol is founder of Asia Careers Group SDN BHD.

Image by tomekwalecki from Pixabay

Go compare – the emerging threat to higher education

Louise Nicol and Alan Preece  First published in University World News on 22 May 2021

Commodification is increasingly likely to be a word that universities need to recognise, understand and apply to their business planning as technology levels the playing field for international student recruitment.

Investopedia tells us that it means ‘a basic good used in commerce that is interchangeable with other goods of the same type’. When you put it alongside Clayton Christensen’s ‘jobs to be done’ and the growing availability of university comparison or application sites, it’s easy to see emerging comparisons with the marketplace for car insurance.

The point about the ‘jobs to be done’ approach is that it highlights that the purpose of buying a particular good or service is to ‘make progress in specific circumstances’. For most international students (and increasingly home students) the purpose of getting a degree is to get a job and to have decent career prospects.

Higher education may want students to study for love of a subject, but the harsh reality for a generation that is poorer than its parents is that this does not seem to be leading to what they need.

A world where outcome is all that counts

A 2013 report by Oliver Wyman shows that, in the United Kingdom, price comparison websites (PCWs) were securing 60% of new motor insurance policies after starting up just a decade before. It suggests that many people were content to make their purchasing decision in this way rather than studiously interrogate the terms and conditions of every company individually.

There is no doubt that the ability to consider price alongside any other factors was vital in the rise of such sites. Moreover, the report found that the reality was that many of the insurance products were virtually indistinguishable.

Choosing a university may not be exactly the same as choosing car insurance, but aggregator sites could present dozens of business and finance courses that all end with a degree from an institution.

In the case of the UK these are accredited by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA). The QAA Quality Mark or Review Graphic shows that the provider has “met or exceeded the UK expectations for quality and standards in their QAA review”. In principle, every UK university with this seal of approval has degrees with equal status, but they offer them at significantly different prices.

The great and the good of higher education may be shaking their heads at this and thinking of Lord Darlington’s quote from Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windemere’s Fan about ‘a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’. But, in a situation where the customer has access to alternatives at the touch of a button, they have the means to determine the price they are willing to pay for the outcome they want.

Lord Darlington’s remark was about the nature of a cynic and it is arguable that young people are increasingly sceptical about the value of higher education.

Price, grades and rankings as differentiators

Institutions will undoubtedly look for ways of distinguishing themselves, but there are very few that have the financial muscle or marketing wit to be able to do so on a global scale.

It was not unknown before the internet for lowly institutions to inflate the tuition fees of their courses to international students on the basis that ‘price is a proxy for quality’. Better accessibility to information and ubiquitous university rankings have put a halt to that ploy so there will be a need for different tactics.

Entry qualifications, which are often seen as a signal of a quality institution, could become a way of communicating quality. But it has become clear that, with the number of universities going SATs free in the United States and the propensity for UK universities to be very flexible with international students, this is shaky ground.

It’s made even more complex by pathway operations that will offer international students a route to entry based on getting the required language level and passing the pathway’s own academic tests.

It would also seem counterproductive for most institutions to try to distinguish themselves by having high tariff entry points on a comparison site. Student matching may be sophisticated, but there is limited scope for nuance about such a defining piece of information and losing volume is not something that most institutions can afford to do.

Trying to impress with output grades is an equally risky business given the potential for grade inflation and the ability of institutions to decide how many of their students get ‘good degrees’.

University ranking may offer a different sort of quality test for students and, whether you love them or hate them, they have become a popular measure of distinction. However, research from the 2020 QS International Student Survey, recently presented at the Universities UK International Higher Education Forum, showed that there is a significant mismatch between the way rankings are compiled and the perceptions of students.

Prospective international students were asked to rank, in order of importance, what they thought a university’s good ranking indicated about the institution.

The top result was that 72% believe graduate employment rate is the most important factor. This was even above the 69% mark for the qualification level of staff members at the institution and 64% for student satisfaction. How a university is perceived by employers was deemed important by 49%, above the 48% for the number of citations in academic journals.

In short, students believed that employment outcomes and employer views were more important than staff quality, student satisfaction and research publications.

Price, ranking and employability

In that context it is disappointing that no current rankings include international student graduate employment as an input.

Within the QS World University Rankings, “employer reputation”, which is not the same as graduate employment rate but could provide some indication, accounts for just 10% of the measure. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2021 methodology did not include any element related to international employability or graduate outcomes.

Government-mandated graduate outcomes data collected in the majority of countries are usually only published with responses from domestic students. As the vast majority of international students – in the UK the estimate is 85% or more – still return to their home country, it would be inaccurate and misleading to use them as a guide to international student employability.

With rankings publishers forming partnerships with agents, aggregators and other interested parties to gain international student eyeballs, it is important for them to pay more attention to this important area.

International student graduate outcomes are being collected by private organisations and would bring real added value that is demonstrably aligned with the aspirations of students willing to invest to study abroad.

Without incorporating this key metric, the rankings will remain more of a vanity contest between institutions than a relevant and useful guide to applicants.

Price, ranking and international student employability are likely to become the key measures of a university’s value proposition when degree information is simple to compare and most institutions are obliged to engage with the aggregator sites.

Being a commodity product means a race to the bottom on price if that is where the institution chooses to compete.

Rankings are fickle, difficult to manage and leave the institution’s fate in the hands of publishers looking to satisfy their own ends. This is a good moment to really focus on providing the student customer with what they want and find ways to enhance value by proving that the institution provides a route to employability.

Alan Preece is an expert in global education, business transformation and operational management and runs the blogging site View from a Bridge and Louise Nicol is founder of Asia Careers Group SDN BHD.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Aggregator recruitment start-ups meet the old order

First printed in University World News on 01 May 2021

The developing aggregator picture has some of the hallmarks of a classic movie where the scrappy outsider working from their bedroom takes on the corporate giants with near limitless resources.

One sign is that we are seeing Yocket, a company started in 2015 by four Indian graduates for US$132, taking on ETS, founded in 1947, which had revenues of over US$1 billion in 2019.

Underneath that David versus Goliath headline there are many other factors at play, with most leading to circumstances where many universities find themselves marginalised as active recruiters.

EdAgree is a subsidiary of ETS founded with US$1 million of seed funding from ETS’s corporate investment arm, ETS Strategic Capital. It runs a free platform allowing international students to match with and apply to university with the support of an advisor.

Yocket offers an online platform which helps students find their best fit university and offers counselling along with other support services.

Yocket’s claim of more than 400,000 registered users and over 100 university ‘tie-ups’ looks impressive with EdAgree only boasting nine listed university partners on its website at the time of writing. But the website also promises university partners the benefits of synergy saying: “EdAgree, with ETS, will bring you qualified students who are ready to succeed…”.

Just for good measure, ETS Strategic Capital is also an investor in ApplyBoard, while ETS is a partner of Studyportals.

A fast-changing world

It’s a dizzying world with companies appearing, rising and disappearing in the space of a few years, driven by the hunger for edtech investments and the expectations of significant growth in globally mobile students.

Start-ups since 2015 include the three mentioned above as well as Edvoy (part of IEC Abroad), Leverage Edu and StudentApply, while SchoolApply has risen, been purchased by INTO University Partnerships and then closed in the space of five years.

Longer term stalwarts such as Studyportals, founded in 2008, have responded with ambitions to be seen as ‘the matchmaker’ in higher education.

Their April 2021 blog notes that they have historically focused on generic content, but are trying to move to more personally curated content including scholarship opportunities.

The blog mentions Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Netflix as inspirations, but it seems likely that the new kids on the ‘university matching’ block have influenced the pace of change.

The dynamics of the sector are still working themselves out, but some trends and tensions seem evident:

• Geographical focus – India seems to be the focus of attention which is not surprising as it has been identified by everybody as the most obvious volume growth market for student mobility and the preponderance of graduate students might suggest they are more comfortable and willing to forego involvement with an agent.

• Role of agents – Several of the newer players have been vocal in suggesting they are correcting the inefficiency of a disorganised agent market. Most aggregators seem to be reaching out to the agent community and providing a new channel for getting university offers. But savvy agents have been using technology for years and it remains to be seen if the agent powerhouses in China will be easily disrupted by aggregators.

• Pathway operators – Much of the recent effort of pathway operators has been to drive revenue through providing direct recruitment to both their pathway partners and as a stand-alone service to other institutions. This route to growth could be blocked if aggregators are able to dominate with students and agents in most countries. Pathway operations may also begin to rely on aggregators – an enquiry to ApplyBoard showed 34 of 97 opportunities identified in a search for UK-based institutions were for pathways.

• Aggregating aggregators – The investments related to ETS suggest that there is plenty of potential for big, well-funded players to selectively invest in a portfolio of aggregators by picking off smaller players or investing in start-ups who might be happy to take the money and run. The ETS involvement also offers the potential of vertical integration along the student journey.

Added value

It might be that the winners and losers are those that find the secret sauce of added value which makes them the best choice for nervous students and parents considering study 5,000 miles from home.

The Studyportals model of simply providing information has morphed into a much more bespoke service but seems a long way from Leverage Edu’s claim to offer access to ‘best-matched career and higher education options’, access to 2,000+ personalised mentors, scholarship finding, education loans, accommodation options and long-term mentoring.

Several of the newer entrants also mention employment and career opportunities with the same fanfare as their links to high-quality universities.

There is no doubt that the aggregators have the financial muscle to do whatever they think will fit the bill. Craft, the enterprise intelligence company’s platform of commercial data, shows that there is a tidal wave of money flowing.

Studyportals raised US$5.4 million in 2017, Leverage Edu’s latest funding round in February 2021 was reported to be US$6.5 million taking total funding to US$9.8 million and the ApplyBoard story is well known, with the funding round in September 2020 reported to be US$53.2 million to take the total raised to US$182.4 million.

It leads to an extremely disrupted and fragmented situation for universities which do not have the will or the money to build their brand, their recruitment expertise and their marketing capability to secure students.

Packy McCormick, founder of the Not Boring Club, notes that the “biggest breakout successes created in the first two decades of the 2000s – the aggregators – started by aggregating demand and using that demand to commodify supply”. The point about a commodity is that it is interchangeable with other goods of the same type and it can be argued that degrees from many institutions are very difficult to differentiate.

A zero-sum game?

If the algorithm works, then the degree alternatives offered should all match the student’s academic capabilities with their desire for a specified qualification from a country or countries of their choice.

They will then be able to focus on factors such as cost, visas and post-study work with the security of knowing that their choices have been laid before them.

This should send a chill down the spine of institutions that have relied on the promise of ‘acres of rolling grassland’, ‘years of academic integrity’ or ‘highly regarded professors’ rather than differentiated, relevant courses leading to successful careers.

There is an inevitable and inexorable shift in the axis of power and the pandemic has accelerated the disruption of old norms. Aggregators are here to stay and the only question is the extent to which most universities find themselves caught in a zero-sum game, where attempts to distinguish themselves become more about marketing spend or data on graduate outcomes than nuances of location.

For all but a few, commodification may then be the name of the game.

Alan Preece is an expert in global education, business transformation and operational management and runs the blogging site View from a Bridge.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN*

It’s always difficult to know when news is official and when it’s a false start and a case in point is the appearance then disappearance of a new Chief Executive Officer for INTO University Partnerships (INTO) over the course of a few days last week.  It would be invidious to name names publicly at this point but one day the INTO corporate website had a picture and biography then a day later it was gone.  It all happened so quickly that I was pleased to have a conversation with a colleague who had seen the website and could also name the individual.

There doesn’t appear to have been a press announcement about the appointment, but on Wednesday 16 June, the site also had INTO’s co-founder John Sykes listed as Deputy Chief Executive and VP of UK Operations so there seemed to be a nascent structure in place.  More curious is that all of INTO’s pages related to people – and they were extensive – went missing and remain so on Wednesday 23 June.  If you click on the link to Our People it takes you to a bland page about Global Reach – Global Impact, the Leadership Team area on Corporate Information is a desert and the Meet Our North American Development Team section is as blank as untrodden snow.

Any official and authoritative explanation is welcome and I’m happy to provide an update if it is forthcoming.  Perhaps the wider site needed a major refreshing but if so it would be reasonable to see the Marshall Student Center and Colorado State University imagery coming down because those joint ventures have closed.  Anyone who has had responsibility for keeping websites up to date know that it is not for the faint-hearted and requires constant vigilance.  Using collateral from partnerships that have ended feels a little like the corporate equivalent of carrying a torch for a childhood sweetheart. 

The claim of 30 university partnerships in the UK and US also does not square with the logos of nine US partners and nine UK partners.  The relationship with Chinese universities appears to have disappeared from the corporate site but the INTO student site still has opportunities for study at Nankai University.  It’s all pretty confusing.

Only time will tell if the lack of information about leadership reflects a new approach to privacy, a major update or a pending restructure of significant proportions but it’s a good moment to review the task facing a new CEO if or when they are appointed.  Partnership growth has stalled, online capability appears to be behind the curve and the main competition has forged ahead in both areas.  It seems a long way from the growth proposition that encouraged Leeds Equity Partners to invest £66m ($105.8m) for a 25% stake in the business back in 2013.    

Over the past two years INTO has seen the end of joint ventures at the University of Gloucestershire, Newcastle University London and Glasgow Caledonian University in the UK as well as Marshall University, Colorado State University and Washington State University in the USA.  The company invested in School Apply in early 2020 and closed it a year or so later.

The INTO Annual Report for the year ended 31 July 2020 was for a year before the full impact of the pandemic was felt on 2020/21 enrolments and suggested little growth.  Adjusted turnover (which removes discontinued operations) was up 3% to £202k while adjusted EBITDA fell 9.1% to £26m.  Overall, the intercompany debt from joint ventures to INTO had increased by around £8m to £44m with the Centre’s closing listed as debtors to the tune of around £11m.

After entering the pathway market with a ground-breaking joint-venture model at the University of East Anglia in 2006, INTO leveraged its model with great initial success in the US at Oregon State University from 2008.  There have been no new partners in the UK since the University of Stirling in 2014 and the most recent pathway additions in the US was Hofstra University announced in January 2019.  Shorelight adopted many aspects of the INTO model and has forged ahead to be the dominant partner of American universities since its founding in 2013.  Long-term players like Kaplan, CEG, Navitas and Study Group and upstarts like QA Higher Education and Oxford International have scooped up the most recent UK university pathway partnerships.

INTO’s purchase of SchoolApply may have been the start of a foray into the world of online delivery but it is no longer active and there is little evidence of significant advances in this area.  This is at a point where Study Group is moving forward with Insendi, Kaplan Open Learning has online partnerships with Essex and Liverpool, CEG Digital has an established stable of partners and even Oxford International has been making waves with its Digital Institute.  In the US, Shorelight has made a great deal of its delivery through the Shorelight Live platform and appears to be repositioning as a business delivering technological solutions to student problems.

One way of looking at things might be to suggest that the reduction in partnerships has been a deliberate step by INTO to clean up some joint ventures that had struggled to make headway in a competitive market.  The growing level of indebtedness from these joint ventures to INTO might suggest that they were not making adequate progress but it does seem as if several decisions were university driven.  The latest closures are part of history that includes the closures of partnerships with St George’s, University of London, and UEA London which undermines the original notion of long-term joint ventures providing greater stability than third-party pathway providers.

It’s something of a strategic head-scratcher and the loss of academic ‘supply’ comes at a tipping point where both the US and UK are demonstrably back in the game as far as international student demand is concerned.  The lack of a viable online option seems to put INTO at a disadvantage in delivering to a market where increased flexibility and option has become the norm and is likely to grow in future years.

Perhaps there is a mega-deal on its way and one might guess that Leeds Equity Partner would be pleased to find a way to realise some return after eight years of a holding position.  A possible merger with Shorelight to become a demonstrable lead player in the US seems a long shot but the operating models have some similarities and the online expertise may bring energy to INTO’s portfolio.  Or maybe this is the moment where a stable group generating solid if unspectacular EBITDA could be taken back into 100% ownership by INTO’s founder, Andrew Colin.

It’s all speculation but for an outside observer INTO needs to establish some renewed momentum if it is to fulfil the promise of its early days of innovation, creativity and energy.  There’s been substantial investment in talent at the top level and perhaps a new CEO is the final piece in the jigsaw.  Only time will tell.

Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay 

* Fans of the mighty Tom Petty will know that Into The Great Wide Open is co-written with Jeff Lynne and charts the progress of Eddie as he “went to Hollywood, got a tattoo”, “made a record and it went in the charts” to the time “their A&R man said, ‘I don’t hear a single”.  It’s the old story of “rebel without a clue”, to overnight success, to uncertainty when “the future was wide open”.      

Amendment on 1 May 2023: The earlier version of this blog suggested that Andrew Colin, founder of INTO, might take the business “private”. It has been amended to clarify that this was intended to suggest he might choose to take it 100% back into his sole ownership

LEAGUE TABLE CLICK-BAIT COMPLICATION FOR UNIVERSITIES

It is standard to hear a manager in the English Premier League say “the table doesn’t lie” as they bemoan their lowly position or celebrate their success.  By contrast it has been equally standard to hear university recruiters put the case that various league tables are wanting in terms of nuance, specificity or even veracity.  But it may become even more complicated if university league table compilers have a direct, commercial interest in the outcome of the table and its impact on students.

In a recent article in The PIE, the Chief Development Officer of Times Higher Education (THE) outlined plans for millions of international students who consult its rankings website each year.  He said, “We want to stay top of the funnel and maximise the number of students coming to the site. What we will then do is identify a network of complementary, trusted partners that we will send those students to.”  The potential for universities to find themselves excluded or obliged to pay large sums for access seem obvious.

Regulators, governments and the sector’s networking bodies would do well to consider whether this manipulation of the recruitment process through commercially driven league tables is in the interests of the institutions and the students.  Back in October 2018 the Office for Students Director of External Relations wrote of the “challenge for policymakers….providing information responsibly and well as accessibly” but it is difficult to see any action to head off the private sector. Allowing brands that have been built with substantial public funding to be used as click-bait providing a return to private money certainly does not seem the best way forward.

Selective, Subjective and Subject to Manipulation

It is equally troubling to think that students may find themselves railroaded into choices by an organization that decides how the league table is compiled and has commercial partners who may have more than a passing interest in the result.  Elsevier have quoted Lydia Snover, director of institutional research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as saying, “every ranking is based on the available, comparable data, and is built on the subjective judgement (over indicators and weightings) of its compilers.”.  Even when league tables are independently audited, consulted upon and done with good intentions they are about choices. 

UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education has suggested that “universities with frequent QS-related contracts experienced much greater upward mobility in both overall rankings and in faculty-student ratio scores over five years in the QS World Rankings”. HEPI’s president, Bahram Bekhradnia, did not find this a surprise and noted, “QS is a commercial organisation. They’re there to make money and their rankings are not objective.”  The higher education sector, while complicit in working with rankings media, is aware that this is a double-edged sword, and it may be that commercial imperative is sharpening one side. 

Those factors are made worse by the documented cases of universities deliberately manipulating the data they submit in order to secure a place higher up the ranking.  A University World News article in 2019 highlighted how the University of Oklahoma had been supplying US News and World Report rankings with incorrect information for nearly two decades.  Occasional errors seem forgivable but the more complex and wide ranging the tables the more scope there would seem to be for manipulation.

Legitimization and Lost Perspective

It seems a long time ago that in the late 1990s a few national UK newspapers would produce university league tables once a year as part of their wider agenda of news coverage.  But since the early 2000s league table compilation and publication has become increasingly central to the activity and business model of some HE sector-oriented media organisations.  Universities have played their own part in legitimizing the ranking races that may undermine their reputation and their ability to compete for students.

Many university planning offices have also spent hundreds of hours analysing league table performance and working to advise their senior colleagues on the levers that can elevate the institution’s position.  It would be difficult to believe any Vice Chancellor who says their university’s league table performance is not considered in strategic discussions.  League tables have become silent and increasingly oppressive enforcers influencing decision making, reputations and student experience.

It is certainly plausible that one of the factors influencing grade inflation at UK universities has been the weighting of a ‘good degree’ in the league tables.  When one university sees a perceived competitor getting league table marks for awarding a higher proportion of ‘good degrees’ the argument to amend marking criteria can be positioned as not disadvantaging students.  Almost without realising it institutions and academics may find their autonomy compromised by external factors.

Methodology, Misalignment and Misunderstanding

Over and above that, the dizzying array of league tables has become a way for compilers to open new routes for advertising income and securing influence.  Universities under 50 years old may welcome the chance to trumpet their performance against similar institutions and it allows the sector to applaud its own achievements.  But when high placings are used as advertising and marketing fodder to attract students the institutions are validating a process which is almost entirely out of their control and where interests may not be aligned. 

In 2004 the Times Higher Education (THE) began its University World Rankings but that has now been joined by 18 other main categories including World Reputation Rankings, Young University Rankings, Emerging Economy Rankings, Subject and Teaching Rankings.  The latest addition of Impact Ranking assesses universities against the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  The accompanying launch events, announcements and conferences drive substantial content, which may be the purpose of media organizations but that is not the same as the purpose of universities.

The QS Rankings also began in 2004 and now covers 11 main categories, with several similar to THE but some noticeable differences such as Employability and System Strength.  They have built a student-facing event series – the QS World Tours – to bring students together with admissions directors at events.  Conferences and consultancy services also build out of the rankings as a source of revenue.

The variability of methodology that universities are trying to deal with shows in the league table results.  The THE and QS most recent “top 10 global universities” and “top 10 under 50 years old” show seven as being the same in each category but three different.  It’s a discrepancy which seems unhelpful if you are a student really wanting to know which were the best of breed in either category.

So, even when compilers are gauging similar categories they are making subjective choices about what to include, how to weight it and whether it will be important to their readers.  But in what is largely a game of statistical musical chairs there is some evidence that there are also fundamental misunderstandings about what is driving the performance of institutions.  Research by QS has suggested, for example, that students believe that a university’s ranking is substantially linked to employability of graduates when this only makes up a small element of the overall score.

It seems indisputable that league tables have become very big business for organizations that compile them and are influential enough to be a source of power over university decision making.  The prospect of them being leveraged to influence student choice and the recruitment potential of institutions has been made clear.  An informed, open discussion leading to collective action by the sector would be a step towards restoring balance. 

Image by Firmbee from Pixabay

INDIA OVERTAKING CHINA AS KEY STUDENT MARKET MAY BE A GAME CHANGER FOR LOWER RANKED UNIVERSITIES

A year ago seems an age away but in January 2020 I was speculating about how the surge of student mobility from India might change the UK higher education sector in terms of demographics and financial benefit.  At that point I described the HESA data as ‘tantalising’ but with the 2019/20 enrollment data available by country and university it’s clear that things have moved quickly.  And there may also be lessons for US universities to consider as they ponder their post-pandemic international recruitment strategies.

The top line numbers from HESA DATA show that the total number of Indian students enrolled in UK higher education grew by 27960 (101.7%) between 2018/19 and 2019/20 compared to a growth of 20,790 (17.2%) for Chinese students.  For each country the growth in the number of undergraduates year on year was around 8,000 but India had an additional 19,000+ enrolled graduates year on year compared to around 12,000 for China.  It is the first sign of a new order for markets of origin with India sending over 5,000 more first year students than China in 2019.

More importantly, the distribution of Indian students by type of institution has proved to be significantly different to that of Chinese students.  One way to illustrate this is a comparison between the universities that saw the biggest year on year growth in each. It is striking that all of the universities with the greatest increase in the number of Chinese students are in the Russell Group but none of those with the most significant increases in Indian students are in the Group.

TABLE 1: Top Ten overall increases for Chinese and Indian Enrollments between 2018/19 and 2019/20

 Change in total enrolled Chinese student yoy from 2018/19 to 2019/20Change in total enrolled Indian students yoy from 2018/19 to 2019/20
Edinburgh141050
East London-151710
Leeds123545
Bedfordshire301595
Southampton1190-10
Hertfordshire-1351575
Sheffield115015
Northumbria901510
UCL106525
Kingston1601265
Manchester88575
Ulster-151230
Birmingham86010
Central Lancashire-1051180
Newcastle85550
Middlesex-110915
Kings College72550
Greenwich-185840
Nottingham72530
Coventry-85810
Note: To maintain consistency private and specialist universities excluded from table.  Of the private universities BPP registered a year on year growth of 1640 from India but a fall of 95 from China.  The London based University of the Arts showed a year on year growth of 790 from China and an additional 70 from India.

Source: HESA

Digging deeper indicates that location is not the main driver of these vastly differentiated enrollment patterns.  The situation for several cities with two main universities is shown below.  Manchester Metropolitan shows relatively balanced numbers but they are small changes and the differential is swamped by the University of Manchester’s growth in Chinese students.

TABLE 2: Selected cities showing change in university enrollments year on year

 China – student change yoyIndia – student change yoy
Birmingham86075
Birmingham City50800
Nottingham72550
Nottingham Trent-150270
Manchester88525
Manchester Metropolitan5070
Sheffield1150-10
Sheffield Hallam-135185

Source: HESA

What becomes clear is that lower ranked universities are securing a significantly greater proportion of the growth in Indian students.  This supports the notion that the changing importance of the two main source markets could have a major impact on the financial strength in different parts of the sector.  But the underlying drivers of the recruitment patterns are less obvious.      

It is likely that lower ranked universities represent better value for money in terms of fees, accommodation and other costs of study which is likely to be particularly attractive to self-funding students.  There is also a propensity for lower ranked universities to make offers at lower grades which means a less competitive route to selection and enrollment.  Several are located in areas that the UK census has shown have strong communities with contacts in India but that would not explain the differences within cities that have two universities.

The differences in performance are very striking and it raises a number of questions about the longer- term strategy of universities that are not currently recruiting heavily from the Indian market.  It seems possible that as numbers from China stabilise or even go into decline there will be greater competition for the growing numbers from India.  It is probably best for lower-ranked universities to make the most of this moment in the sun but if they have the opportunity to develop a solid local community and optimise their contacts with alumni the impact may be long lasting.

More troubling for some universities might be their failure to recruit strongly from either of these major markets in 2019/20.  There are some well-known names and reasonably ranked institutions that seem to be suffering as the big city Russell Group universities excel in recruiting students from China but who do not appear attractive to students from India.  It is interesting but seems counter intuitive that the two with the greatest loss from China year on year are partnered with pathway operators with traditional strengths in the country.

TABLE 3: Universities with the largest year on year loss of students from China (2018-19 to 2019-20)

UniversityChina – year on year change in total enrollmentsIndia – year on year change in total enrollments
Sussex– 34010
East Anglia– 26040
Hull– 2005
NOTE: I’d like to commend the University of Hull for their experiment in charging postgraduates starting in 2021 the same as Home students. It will be interesting to see how it works out.

 Source: HESA

As noted the University of Hull has embarked on an aggressive marketing ploy to charge postgraduate students the same fee as home students in 2021. As far as I am aware this is unique in the UK higher education system and it will be interesting to see how it works out. It’s certainly better than those universities that will continue to discriminate in favour of all European Union students who are now deemed international but are being allowed home student rates.

For UK universities there is unlikely to be any Government opposition to the growing numbers although experience shows it’s always possible for U-turns in policy.  As recently as 4 March, 2021, Minister for Future Borders and Immigration Kevin Foster said, “As we rebuild from the global pandemic we want the world’s brightest talent, who aspire to a career at the highest levels of business, science, the arts and technology to see our United Kingdom as the natural place to fulfil their aspirations.   The changes announced today will ensure once they have received a gold standard qualification from one of our world leading education institutions they can easily secure the status they need to continue living, working and fulfilling their dreams in the UK.”

It sounds great news for recruitment but I am reminded of a Government statement with the words, “We want high quality international students to come here. We want them to study at genuine institutions, whose primary purpose is providing a first class education. And we want the best of them – and only the best of them – to stay on and work here after their studies are complete.” This statement was made by then Home Secretary, The Rt Hon Theresa May, in 2011, shortly before the UK post-study work visa was removed.  It would probably only take an economic setback and rising numbers of unemployed graduates to see post-study work for international students being viewed less favourably by a Government that is still posturing about border control.

For US universities keen to make the most of revitalized interest from international students it is worth considering how recent research from IDP might dictate their engagement and offer strategy.  A survey of more than 800 prospective international students in more than 40 countries who are interested in studying in the US – with more than half of respondents based in India – found that more than three quarters (76%) have improved perceptions of the US since the 2020 presidential election, with 67% stating they are now more likely to study there.  What is clear from the UK experience is that the opportunity to recruit from India is available to almost all institutions if they can get the fundamentals right.

Critically, the emerging facts from the UK suggest that value in the cost of study is likely to be as significant a driver of interest as rankings.  Post study work is an important outcome but students, particularly those that are self-financing, will be equally interested in being able to minimize their outgoings during the course.  Making appropriate adjustments and moving decisively to work in market with a compelling message will be vital for institutions wanting to maximise international enrollments post-pandemic.

Fatal Four Way Match for Universities?

Economist John Maynard is famous for saying, “In the long run we are all dead”, but he also wrote, “there will be no harm in making mild preparations for our destiny”.  Universities might consider this as they struggle to encourage international students to overlook the near-term uncertainties of the pandemic in 2021. The real winners will be those readying for 2022 when all four of the major receiving Western countries are likely to be competing from a position of strength.

There is no point in the last twenty years when the US, UK, Canada and Australia have, at the same time, been growing aggressively or had in-country conditions enabling them to promote themselves effectively.  While globally mobile student numbers have grown there has always been a country operating with at least one hand tied behind its back.  It seems likely that this is about to change, which is going to bring unusual pressures to bear on recruitment efforts.   

If there is significant headway on vaccination rollouts, the pandemic recedes and internal country politics align it will be time for a revitalized UK, a desperate Australia, a confident Canada and a Biden-powered USA to do battle.  Those familiar with World Wrestling Entertainment’s Fatal Four Way match up may think it could be a contest that makes equally interesting viewing.  For international students it will mean a smorgasbord of opportunity, offers and opening doors.        

Overview and Trends

Data from individual countries are not standardized but the graph below focuses only on students identified as bachelors, postgraduate taught and doctoral for each country.  This eliminates the language only, non-degree and/or OPT registered elements that provide wider fluctuation and distortion between countries.  For example, significant elements of the recent Canadian international student growth are concentrated outside degree level programs.

The data indicates that when the US has done well Australia and the UK have been steady or in decline.  It also demonstrates the increasing place of Canada in degree level awards with every likelihood that the explosive growth at lower levels will feed through over time.

A starker way of visualising the pattern is to consider each country’s percentage share of the aggregate enrollements of all four and show how it has risen or declined year on year.  Changes in the US share correlate reasonably well to the shifts in the fortunes of other countries and particularly the UK and Australia.  The Canadian share is relatively stable but is likely to have an increased impact as the volume increases.

From 2002/03 to 2011/12 the US consistently lost market share against the other countries.  The burst of growth, which underpinned the expansion of investment in pathways in the US came from 2011/12 to 2015/16 when its share of the market grew.  The subsequent decline of US enrollments from 2016/17 has correlated with accelerated growth from Canada and Australia and latterly, the UK.  

Country by country factors broadly match the numbers and suggest that it was not competition alone that caused the ebbs and flows.  US growth in the 2000s was sluggish as the country proceeded with caution after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  The UK stagnated after removal of post-study work visas in 2012.  Australian visa restrictions, from 2009 were followed by significant benevolent changes from 2013 onwards.  And Canada’s focus on growth came with particular emphasis from the 2011 Economic Action Plan and 2014-2019 International Education Strategy although its relative share was undermined by the US growth between 2011/12 and 2015/16.

The Global Picture

At a global level, the OECD measure of globally mobile students pursuing tertiary education gives an indicator of the competitive threats and opportunities that exist.   What seems most clear is that the trend has been for the non-OECD countries to increase their share of the market over time.  In 2018 they had 30% of the market while in 2000 they had only 24%, which suggests power is gradually moving away from the traditional receiving countries.

The big four will also suffer from the success of countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Russia taking an increasing share of OECD country growth.  A by-product of that may be the way that pathways – which have come to be a dominant part of the UK and Australian landscape – have to respond to the new era.  Pathways operations in Europe have become commonplace and Brexit may be another factor that accelerates their growth. 

Number of international or foreign students enrolled in OECD and non-OECD countries

Source: Education at a Glance 2020.  Figure B6.1. 

With growth likely to come from more price sensitive markets it may also be worth universities taking account of the relative changes in costs that may be coming around the corner.  It is interesting to watch foreign exchange predictions and there seems to be a view that the US dollar may weaken over the coming 18 months and increase the competitiveness of its services.  Alongside this there are voices suggesting strengthening of the UK pound, the National Bank of Canada expects the Canadian Dollar to appreciate, and there seems to be plenty of confidence in the future value of the Australian Dollar.

Conclusions

It seems reasonable to conclude that over the past two decades each of the main four recruiting countries has, from time to time, benefited because one of the main competitors has struggled to create the conditions for growth.  But no country with a thriving higher education section is going to willingly shut its doors forever and all the signs are that universities will need growth to offset economic conditions and government cutbacks in their home country or state. While it is easy to feel smart when things are going well; it is wiser to be smart about what is happening to the competitive set and what you can do to prepare for changing conditions. 

2021 remains uncertain but there is every reason to believe that 2022 will see greater competition across the globe.  In a head-to-head match, where the quality of the universities, visa availability and the possibility of post-study work become more equal, it will be interesting to see who wins.  The US has all the tools to win and its fall from being the most favored destination owes as much to its decrease in popularity as the increase in desire to go elsewhere.  

The time to prepare is now, and there is nothing to stop a smart US university giving real consideration to establishing a market-priced offering to students from the most rapidly growing source markets.  Establishing a high-profile recruitment platform in early 2021 would take advantage of the market sentiment towards the Biden administration supported by the gradual re-opening of visa offices.  Carpe diem may summarize 2021 but audentes fortuna iuvat should be on everyone’s lips for 2022.

Footnote

Data on international enrollments are not consistent across the main recruiting countries.  The data used takes sources where it appears to be possible to secure an aggregate number for total enrollments of international students undertaking a bachelors, postgraduate taught or doctoral degree.  The sources for each country are itemised below and any insights or corrections to my assumptions are welcome.  The data are also subject to other anomalies which make comparison a subjective business.  The main points to make in that regard are:

i) Australian data appears on a calendar year.  Placing this against sources reporting academic years requires making a judgement about which year compares to which but is not material in the context of the main line of argument in this blog.

ii) UK data used are from the latest HESA release (27 January 2021) for the most recent five years and use historical data for the years before.  In building the spreadsheets I noticed that the numbers in the most recent release differ slightly from those in prior releases.  These differences are not significant enough to make a difference to the main argument.

iii) EU student data has been omitted from the UK data because the economic incentive to recruit them is not the same as international students who can be charged higher fees than home students.

iv) The timing of data collection is likely to be an increasingly important factor as universities increase their number of entry points in the year.  This is likely to be a contributing factor to the HESA data noted above. 

v) Sources

– US data from IIE Open Doors download of historical data and analysis of Undergraduate (Bachelors and Associate), and Graduate only:

– UK data from Higher Education Statistics Authority.  Latest release for most recent five years but historical data before that time.  Non-European Union, all levels (UG and PG) and all modes of study:

– Australia data from Department of Education, Skills and Employment, Higher Education Statistics, uCUBE, Enrolments Overseas, Sum of Postgraduate and Bachelors, 2001-2019 (removed enabling and non-award):

– Canada data from Statistics Canada, Postsecondary enrolments, by registration status, institution type, status of student in Canada and gender. Selected University,   International Students, all fields of study, 2000/2001 to 2018/19.  Sum of International Standard Classification of Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral (and equivalents) for Canada:

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Canadian HE Pathways – An Open then Shut Case?

The recently announced ten-year contract between Ryerson University and Navitas raises questions about the fate of pathway discussions with the University of Western Ontario (commonly known as Western).  The interest of both universities may also be indicative of emerging financial pressures that could make Canada a land of opportunity for pathway operators. But some recent closures suggest it’s not always going to be plain sailing in “the True North strong and free”.

Even before the pandemic, there was increasing pressure on university budgets in Ontario, Alberta and Manitoba.  Alberta plans to reduce post-secondary institution funding by 20 percent over three years and Ontario plans to make up to 60 per cent of funding tied to performance-based metrics over time.  This has echoes of the State budgetary cuts that forced many public US universities to consider, and in some cases work with, commercial pathway operations.

But there is evidence that even in Canada pathways groups will have to pick their partners wisely to achieve sustainability. Study Group’s partnerships with Stenberg College and the Center for Arts and Technology were announced in February 2019 but will not be admitting students after the Fall 2020 intake. They do not seem to have flourished despite Canada’s general popularity with globally mobile students.

Western May Need “Urgent Assistance” To Recruit  

For anyone who thought that life was good for the university sector in Canada the specter of budget cuts and performance-based metrics may come with a touch of schadenfreude. There seems little doubt that Western has had to take the matter seriously and that its achievements in attracting international student interest have been limited. Fortunately for those who are interested the debate in the university is played out largely in public documents.

At Western’s March 2020 Senate meeting the President, when asked when the Navitas proposal might come to Senate, “indicated the timeline had not yet been determined. If the University needs urgent assistance to recruit students that could impact the timing of the proposal.” Western’s international enrollment has been patchy with their 2018-19 their international first year undergraduate intake being 855 compared to 508 in 2015-16 but then dropping back to 639 in 2019-20.  Perhaps more troubling in terms of concentration was that 75% of the 2019-20 intake was from China.

A potential block to any deal was the reminder that, “Senate notes that the potential partnership with Navitas involves the academic work of the University, which explicitly falls under the remit of Senate in the UWO Act; and therefore the articulation agreement/partnership/credit transfer/affiliation agreement/ contract to engage in the academic work of Western must come to Senate for approval.” In the manner of university turf-wars a representative of the Operations/Agenda Committee then noted “that it would support details relating to the academic components progressing to Senate, with the financial arrangements not being within Senate’s remit.” 

For those who enjoy the knockabout nature of university meetings the minutes are well worth a read and particularly so at S.20-59 where Question 2 noted that Navitas had agreements with Simon Fraser University and the University of Manitoba.  The discomfort was evident, “should Western proceed with a partnership with Navitas when two and possibly three other Canadian universities have such partnerships (which will make us one of four Canadian universities for which those vaunted Navitas recruiters are recruiting, so not obviously set apart from the other Canadian universities)”.

Sadly, and perhaps because of the pandemic, no further Senate meetings have been reported this year so it is difficult to say whether discussions went any further.  But Exhibit IV, Appendix 4 of the February Senate Agenda outlines the enrollment background and the shape of the Navitas deal being proposed. It’s also worth noting that Ryerson might have insisted that Navitas do not engage another Ontario partner in the near future so Navitas’s loss could be someone else’s gain.

The Bigger Picture and the Potential Trap

Anyone following developments in Canada will have seen the explosive growth in international student enrollments.  That has been tracked by the desire of pathway operators to find a way into the market, and Navitas appears to have got a small edge.  But the Ryerson deal and Western’s apparent need or willingness to engage may suggest we are seeing the thin end of a wedge that will see more Canadian universities joining with commercial partners to drive their international growth.

Movement in recent years has largely been in what may be considered secondary brands and non-degree bearing institutions. A recent announcement saw GUS expanding its Canadian network with the Trebas Institute but the Study Group experience noted above is a cautionary tale. Perhaps this is a good moment for all investors to pause and consider the history of pathways in North America.

Some believe, along with Marx, that history happens the “first time as tragedy, the second as farce”.  The United States was considered the El Dorado of pathway opportunities for several year with over a $1bn of private money flowing into expansion and start-ups.  The recent, rapid decline of pathway numbers, with more than ten closing in the past year, suggests that there is virtue in considering how to position yourself to be sustainable over the longer-term.

However, a resurgent United States could rapidly reassert its dominant position over Canada in terms of attractiveness to international students.  It would not take much for a loosening of visa constraints, an improvement in post-study work availability and a more welcoming administration to turn things around.   It is a reasonable bet that the change in post-study work opportunities in the UK has already slightly dampened interest in Canada as a destination.

Seasoned observers of international student mobility know that what goes round tends to come round.  Just as the step back taken by Australia and the UK in the early 2010s helped fuel growth in the US it seems reasonable to believe that the current US situation is helping to drive interest in Canada and the UK.  Quality universities will always recruit best under difficult conditions, so the right answer is to build a portfolio of decent brands and acknowledged specialist institutions while having a fall-back position for students who don’t meet those standards.

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