Tag: international students

Trump, Tech and Tomorrow is Another Day

We are just a few days from the annual Open Doors announcement and it will be accompanied by the Fall 2024 snapshot.  But there is some merit in getting underneath the hood of individual institutions to see what the trends might be and think about what might happen next.  Focusing on four of the INTO University Partners “comprehensive partnerships” where universities give reasonable levels of Fall 2024 enrollment detail also gives a sense of how traditional pathway might be doing.

It’s a mixed bag with Oregon State University (OSU) still becalmed, St Louis University (SLU) appearing to be over-exuberant in its growth ambitions, the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) making steady progress and George Mason University (GMU) stalling.  A top-level review of the three public universities suggests that UAB wins on value1 but consideration of their website and positioning suggests that they have integrated thinking about and appealing to international students in a more fundamental way than some competitors2.  As more US universities become active in pursuit of international students this holistic approach is likely to be increasingly important.

There does not appear to be any sign of a revival in the number of students coming from China, either in direct enrollment or through pathways.  The situation with visa refusals and delays for Indian students has been commented on in several media and appears to be having a dampening effect.  The US need for STEM students continues and it will be interesting to see whether the incoming President’s increased engagement with the “tech bros” gives momentum and follow through on his Green Card promise.

The reality is that the underlying dynamics of international recruitment have changed as the main sending countries have shifted.  Promises of post-study work opportunities would be a significant enhancement to the traditional lure of the US and students will often overlook the internal politics of a country if getting a visa and a job is straightforward.  It is arguable that even a “frontal attack” on university  freedoms is unlikely to deter the majority of students seeking a career in the US.       

Oregon State University

The first INTO partner in the USA, Oregon State University made no progress on rebuilding its international student numbers in Fall 2024.  Enrollments are still below 2012 level and undergraduate numbers are continuing to drift down from a peak in 2017.  Year on year the number of Chinese enrollments has fallen another 23% (to 262), students from India are down 4% (to 375) and the only bright spot is students from Taiwan up 27% (to 223).

Source: OSU Office of Institutional Research

The INTO Oregon State University joint venture continues to struggle and is down 63% on its pre-pandemic enrollment.  While the Fall enrollment is up by 44 students3 to 301 this remains below the numbers achieved in 2020 and 2021.  All this despite the joint venture launching a special “Jump Start” employment program for international students in July 2024 to help drive enrollment.     

Source: OSU Office of Institutional Research

St Louis University

As failures in forecasting go St Louis University’s (SLU) well publicized enrollment of only 300 additional international students against a target of 1,300 isn’t quite in the class of Lord Kelvin’s 1895 claim that “heavier than air flying machines are impossible”.  But for those now trying to find savings of $20m in the year the resulting shortfall looks pretty painful.  It could be a sign that for some US universities the reliance on enrollment from India for growth brings increasing levels of risk.

On the face of it, SLU’s targeted growth must have seemed plausible given that the year before they had increased the numbers enrolled from India by 1,775.  Having all your eggs in one basket (with SLU having 76% of its international students from India) is rarely a good idea and the shortfall brings the F1 visa trends into sharp relief.  An excellent article in University World News by Ragh Singh suggests that from January to August 2024 there were 39,000 fewer F1 visas issued to Indian students than in the same period for 2023.

Source: St Louis University Office of Institutional Research

The INTO SLU joint venture pathway operation became wholly owned by INTO in August 2021 and its enrollment numbers are not publicly available.  As the official language of both Ghana and Nigeria is English it seems unlikely that the modest growth in direct student enrollments from these countries are feeding into the pathway.  There is no sign of a revival in enrollments from China. 

St Louis University Direct Student Enrollment – Main Countries

201920202021202220232024
India726517066424392620
China309233166108111101
South Korea282125586974
Nigeria19920405656
Ghana7911182946
Saudi Arabia645341404140

Source: St Louis University Office of Institutional Research

University of Alabama Birmingham

The University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) is another “comprehensive partner” of INTO and looks to be making steady progress on international student recruitment.  UAB is probably helped by featuring regularly as being good value for international students as well as featuring well in external measures of quality. In Fall 2022 “just under a third” of international students were from India and it is a reasonable bet that this percentage has increased.

August 2023 saw a strong media item featured on WBRC News which could be a model for universities anywhere in the world trying to emphasis the local economic and cultural value of international students. Shadi Martin, Dean of Graduate School and Chief International Officer makes the point that, “It used to be that we had a lot of students who came from China, that number has shifted.  But we are seeing a significant number of students coming from India right now.  We have students coming from the Middle East [and] Africa.”

Source: UAB Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Analysis

At the joint venture INTO UAB pathway level the university does not split out nationalities.  The pathway appears to have recovered reasonably well from the pandemic with a particularly strong showing in Academic English in Fall 2024.  All looks set fair.

Source: UAB Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Analysis

George Mason University

George Mason University (GMU) does not provide a breakdown of its international student enrollment numbers until it publishes its Facts and Figures Yearbook.  The best approximation is the Out of State student number of which international students have been a growing proportion.  In Fall 2024 the Out of State FTE fell slightly on the previous year which may be an indicator that international enrollment has fallen.  

Source: George Mason University Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning

The joint venture partnership with INTO had been making a slow recovery after the pandemic but has suffered a setback with a 16% decrease in enrollment year on year.  This takes it back to levels last seen at the onset of the pandemic.  It’s only 11 students fewer but seems to reflect the picture at the overall university level.

Source: George Mason University Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning

NOTES

  1. It is always difficult to compare like for like in terms of value.  Some comparison tools were used to make this assessment but the author accepts that there may be other ways of considering this evaluation.
  2. This is a personal and qualitative assessment based on several decades of experience recruiting international students for universities.
  3. This number is based on the year-on-year reporting.  There appears to be an unexplained adjustment to 2023 numbers in the 2024 publication.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Squaring the Circle

Squaring the circle represents a geometry problem from Greek mathematics with some suggesting that Anaxagoras was the first to work on it around 450 BC.  The problem required the construction of a square with the area of a given circle using only Euclidean construction and a limited number of steps.  It wasn’t until 1882 that the Lindemann-Weierstrass theorem, which proves that pi is a transcendental number, showed that the task was impossible.

The incoming Labour government may find it has a similarly difficult task in trying to balance UK economic strategy, workforce needs and international student recruitment.  When a student visa comes with two years of guaranteed opportunity to find a job and international enrollment growth is dependent on post-study work rights, the linkage between study and work is evident.  For a government that is committed to getting the UK employment rate from 75% to 80% with “2 million more people in work across the UK” it will interesting to see if there is enough economic growth to meet all needs.

It’s also interesting to look at the party’s historic position on the relationship between work and study rights and the thinking of some of its current leading figures on the economic and political priorities.  With plans for primary/secondary years and “training, an apprenticeship, or help to find work for all 18- to 21-year-olds” articulated in its manifesto the current priorities for education also seem clear.  What seems to be lacking is any real focus on higher education.         

The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones1

Labour’s underlying attitude to the balance between jobs and migration may have been articulated in 2007 when Jacqui Smith, now Education Minister, was the Home Secretary introducing the new points-based visa system.  She noted its role in “…ensuring that only those migrants Britain needs can come to work or study in the UK.”  The absolute clarity of “only those migrants Britain needs” suggests a transactional approach to study and work visas founded on the UK’s express requirements rather than open house on post-study work.

It was consistent with the Labour Government’s five year strategy published in February 2005. Then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, noted, “We will bring all our current work schemes and students into a simple points-based system designed to ensure that we are only taking migrants for jobs that cannot be filled from our own workforce…” (my emphasis).     

By February 2009 Smith was having to tighten up on the points based system for migrant workers and saying, “Just as in a growth period we needed migrants to support growth, it is right in a downturn to be more selective about the skill levels of those migrants, and to do more to put British workers first.”   While it was a Conservative Government that would cut post study work rights in 2011 as unemployment was stuck at c8% it is difficult to think Labour would have done anything else.      

Language is the immediate actuality of thought2

Bridget Phillipson may be on record as saying, “Be in no doubt: international students are welcome in the UK” but amid all the happy talk that has got the sector so excited there must surely be an underlying concern that these are only words.  Back in 2011, David Cameron said, “We’re working with the sector to encourage the brightest and best students from around the world to come and study..”  and in 2012 Theresa May said, “…we want the best and the brightest minds in the world to come to study in Britain, and we want our world-class universities to thrive.”  Everyone knows what happened next.

Jacqui Smith, as Minister of State for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, will certainly  have to reconsider her responses if she is truly to “champion universities”.  The early signs are less than encouraging, as she has already failed to guarantee support for universities under funding pressure and only remarked that universities should be “looking at how they can run efficiently as possible”.  This follows Bridget Phillipson’s suggestion that there are “expectations around how they manage their budgets, and I would expect them to do that without seeking any calls on the taxpayer”

It would be naïve of universities to read much into the government’s more supportive statements other than an attempt to calm the crew (rather than actively steady the ship) while they face much more important issues like a £20bn funding gap, a collapsing NHS and armed forces unable to fight a sustained conflict.  If the sector chooses to pursue significant increases in international student enrollments to fill a funding gap it runs the risk of compromising the Government on a migration issue where much of the voting public remains nervous.  The severity of the Chancellor in the House of Commons yesterday is also not to be underestimated. 

Ruthless criticism of all that exists3

There may also be something about the underlying thinking of key figures in the Labour party that mitigates against allowing significant growth in the number of students working after studying.  Keir Starmer made it clear to the CBI in 2022 that Labour would set about “reducing the UK’s dependency on migrant labour”.  More generally in a policy vacuum related to universities he has ditched a commitment to abolish student tuition fees and has constantly dodged making any aspirational statements on higher education participation.     

In an essay for a Fabian Society publication in 2016 the Chancellor Rachel Reeves noted that, “it is important to acknowledge that being a member of the EU did help keep wages lower for many workers”.  More recently she has said that “..rising population growth from immigration has sometimes exacerbated the slow take-up of technology in the UK economy.” The political element is also clear with Reeve’s noting in 2016 that “Immigration controls and ending free movement has to be a red line post-Brexit – otherwise we will be holding the voters in contempt.”  None of this suggests a free for all on student or graduate visas will be welcome.

A proponent of the strategy to reduce the numbers on long-term sickness benefit is Alan Milburn, an ex-Labour Secretary of State for Health, who also links the practical issue of UK domestic employment with the political realities.  Writing in The Times he says, “This is a wake-up call for the new Labour government to wean themselves off the easy solution of importing more workers from overseas”.  Any increase in the number of international students seeking work after study may be seen as in tension with “getting more out-of-work Brits into work”.

It could be even worse if Labour is looking at commentary from Australia where Leith van Onselen has recently argued that entry level jobs are “swallowed by international students”.  His argument is that this is “posing problems for younger Australians seeking entry into the labour market.”  The last thing the sector, or Labour, needs is a controversy where domestic students are unable to pay back tax-payer funded debt because international students are dominating the jobs market.

From the world of thought to the actual world4

It is reasonable to note that if you change the conditions of the problem, squaring the circle becomes possible and that the Labour Party Manifesto ran for office under the slogan “Our plan to change Britain”.  The pressing question is whether the Labour government is fully committed to seeing universities as a key part of a preferred solution to change Britain and if it does, why is there no sense of direction at the moment?  It has already shown that it is lukewarm on the notion of committing money to help failing universities and where the manifesto commits to 18- to 21-year-olds it is all about training, apprenticeships and finding work.

There is no sweeping commitment to increase the numbers going to university, industrial strategy seems couched in terms of “research institutions”, university spinouts, and using public investment to unlock private sector investment.  There is a commitment to reduce net migration and its sentence on ending the days of “a sector languishing endlessly on immigration shortage lists” might be directed at universities as much as employers.  The “barriers to opportunity” section of the manifesto offers progressive plans for schools, apprenticeships and further education while higher education gets “strengthening regulation”, better integration with FE, improving access and raising teaching standards.

None of this looks like a Labour party that, even if sympathetic to aspiration and more domestic students in higher education, sees the current, disparate and expensive offering of three-year campus based degrees for young people as the optimal way forward. We shall see.

NOTES

All sub-headings are from the writings of Karl Marx.  Congratulations to the Marxist Internet Archive for a very well organized and interesting site.

  1. “The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones” (Marx, German Ideology (1845))
  2. “Language is the immediate actuality of thought” (Marx, German Ideology, Chapter 3 (1846))
  3. “ruthless criticism of all that exists” Marx, Letter from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (1843)
  4. “from the world of thought to the actual world”  Marx, German Ideology, Chapter 3 (1846)

Image by PIRO from Pixabay

Dear University…

The change in the UCAS personal statement for September 2026 entry appears to have been welcomed by industry commentators who suggest it will make life “easier” for both author and reader.  The stated ambition “to ensure more people from disadvantaged backgrounds can benefit  from the life-changing opportunity of higher education”  is laudable but one might ask if this approach is best or sustainable.  We could just be opening a new battleground in the struggle for supremacy between AI coders for applicants and those in universities trying to spot the hand of ChatGPT. 

Having read personal statements in the past, I can only begin to imagine the repetition of thought and words across hundreds of applicants as they answer to “why do you want to study this course”.  For applicants the anxiety of how edgy, pushy, obsequious, or data-driven to be in responding to the question remains the same and it will still be considered by a human with their personal interpretation of the best answer.  More efficient but even worse if the response is considered by a bot looking for key words. Perhaps it is time to radically rethink the process. 

Perhaps selecting universities, to put all applicants meeting their requirements (including contextual elements and any other considerations) into a random draw to remove any risk of bias.  For universities struggling to meet enrollment numbers it is difficult to see how bad a personal statement would have to be to get refused if the applicant meets the qualifications criteria for entry.  Either way, the student gets more clarity on what they need to do and an equal chance of success.       

Or maybe universities should be accepting that students are paying for the privilege to study and have a right to apply for whatever course they want if they have the qualifications.  Nobody asks somebody coming in to buy a Range Rover Evoque for £50,000 why they want it, whether they’ve driven one before or what their driving history is.  They might ask to see a driving licence before it’s driven off the lot but that’s about it.

I hear the howls about a degree course being nothing like any other purchase but students seem to be increasingly clear that they are considering degrees as an investment they are making towards a better job, career and life.  UCAS research indicates that “value matters to students” and that “initially, applicants are interested in career prospects after their degree”.  While students still value wellbeing, enjoyment and happiness it would seem there has been a fundamental swing towards outcomes.   

…I Would Like To Apply

With all that in mind there is an opportunity to test drive the new format in the imaginary persona of an applicant who would like to go to university but has been reading very widely about the sector.  They are anxious to explain their interest but also to demonstrate their research, their personality and some of their concerns. There is even an attempt at humour.             

1. Why do you want to study this course or subject?

Because I believe in your publicity that having a degree will get me a good career and well paid job.  That is really what I want. I trust you.  As you will see from my application to your institution I am avoiding the Russell Group and STEM subjects. I realise this means that being from a poorer, socio-economic background and a neglected region I can expect to be part of the statistics showing that “a degree often fails to deliver the promise of increased earnings.” 

Although I’ve chosen to believe that the graduate premium exists, I am a bit worried that there is “a more uncertain future” and ignoring the Government Graduate Labour Market Statistics indicating that over the past 20 years real median graduate salaries have declined faster than those of non-graduates.  I am hoping that reports that it’s even worse outside London1 are all Balls1 and that the indications more and more companies are dropping the requirement for a degree to get a job are overblown. 

I want to come to university to help the sector by improving statistics on one of the groups it struggles to attract and I’ve chosen to study psychology because I am keen to improve gender balance in the class.2 

2. How have your qualifications and studies prepared you for this course or subject?

I am predicted to achieve the grades that you publish and in the right subjects.  My teachers may just be being kind, overworked or avoiding confrontation with my parents but that’s not my fault.  I’m told you’re so desperate I shouldn’t worry about missing by a bit.  Only joking (!) but we have all read the studies that 25% of grades are probably wrong  and that half the students get in with lower grades anyway. 

Post qualification application would solve the uncertainty and anxiety for young people but I appreciate that you have established a system that works for you and will find excuses not to change it.  Maybe it’s just a power thing or you think you’re some sort of magical sorting hat with a campus attached.  If I fail to get the grades I hope I will be given the same opportunity as an international year one student who pays for the privilege to study on campus with direct entrants. 

While on the subject of grades, it would be helpful to know exactly what you are doing about degree grade inflation and why half of first class degrees awarded are unexplained by statistical modelling.  I see you are correcting this but that means I might be penalized by having a lower degree classification than someone who attended in those golden years.

3. What other experiences have prepared you for this course, and why are they relevant?

I complain a lot and so can support that student trend. I can even enhance my global citizenship in line with your strategy by providing support for international students as they are 36% of all complaints to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for HE.  Because I often borrow money from my siblings and never pay it back I’ll cope well with joining the 1.8m graduates with a taxpayer funded debt of over £50,000 and those not earning enough to pay it off.  As I don’t like getting out of bed not attending lectures is OK with me and given the way you’re cutting staff that should help you out. 

I’m quite frugal, so living in borderline poverty shouldn’t be a problem however bad the maintenance loan situation gets.  I am also used to disappointment (having supported Gareth Southgate and England since 2018) which will lessen the pain when I get to the realities of the graduate job hunt.  My empathy is shown by my concern for international students on reading that data collection on graduate outcomes has been cut back which means they have even less insight than I do about job prospects. 

In summary my experience as an intense online gambler, who eats little, never goes out, earns a pittance, borrows heavily, complains a lot, expects to be disappointed and has limited life prospects has prepared me perfectly for life as a student.  Only kidding (again) I really would like the chance to learn.

The Generation Game

For this imaginary student there is a lot to consider in the light of survey research suggesting 30% of people being “broadly uninterested” in universities and a further 27% being “negative” or “sceptical”.  While the culture wars that saw the Conservative Government going head-to-head with the sector in recent years may be over there is little respite in terms of additional funding to reduce the level of fee debt or improve maintenance loans.  As the imaginary statement suggests there seem to be plenty of reasons to worry about whether university is a good investment of time, money and stress.

The weakness in UK undergraduate applications revealed by UCAS this week suggest that this argument might be playing out in the minds not only of 18 year olds but also every group under 25. It’s troubling in the context of a rapidly growing 18 year old cohort that is predicted to expand for the rest of the decade and even more so if surveys suggesting a third of UK students may drop out due to money worries are accurate.

Notes

  1. For those who miss the link the report “Tackling the UK’s regional economic inequality: binding constraints and avenues for policy intervention” is co-authored by Ed Balls whose surname was the punchline to Michael Heseltine’s joke at the Conservative Party Conference in 1995.
  2. It is entirely recognized that the gender imbalance on courses cuts both ways. It is also clear that despite more women than men going to university in the UK there is a huge amount still to be done on gender pay imbalances and equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has explored aspects of the intersection between these factors.

Image by Antonios Ntoumas from Pixabay

A 71.6 Million Dollar Question and More

US-based film and TV courtroom dramas have been beloved by the British for many decades.  From 12 Angry Men and My Cousin Vinny to The Lincoln Lawyer and Goliath they all seem so much more glamorous and edgy than Kavanagh QC and Rumpole of the Bailey.  But for organizations in the UK higher education sector, closer encounters with US law can be costly in financial or reputational terms, in a land where being separated by the same language may be just one of the problems.

The court case between INTO University Partnerships (INTO) and the University of South Florida (USF) began in 2022 and shows no sign of concluding any time soon.  Court filings have now given some insight into the amount of damages that INTO may be seeking.  Set alongside the legal costs, some of which will be considered at a hearing on July 161, there is a lot at stake.

Nearly 30 British universities have been listed as clients in a case bought by the United States of America ex rel HITROST LLC against Study Across the Pond, LLC and John Borhaug last month2.  The allegation is that their arrangements flouted a ban on incentive-based payments and that the defendants “knowingly caused” the universities to make false claims for federal student aid.  While the universities are not listed as defendants there are several issues they might want to consider about contractual arrangements and internal controls, if the Complaint is accurate.

It’s all the more important when the relationship between universities and agents is under closer Government scrutiny. While the sector is trumpeting its Agent Quality Framework (AQF) the concept of self-regulation may not be enough to prevent firmer regulatory oversight. Some issues around the AQF are considered in this blog.

The summaries and comments below should not be taken to imply any views on the merits of the cases or the legal issues involved. These are complex issues so references and links are given for those who wish to delve deeper.  Material is provided in good faith and will be amended if an authoritative source provides more accurate information.          

Runnin’ Down A Dream

The court case between INTO and USF3 has rumbled on since my last update in January 2024 and looks set to run for most of the rest of the year.  The foundations of this dispute were covered in my  first blog on the matter in August 2022. The case is still in the discovery phase and there are regular filings with arguments and counter-arguments from both sides.       

Perhaps the most interesting point is that there is now a dollar amount on the size of damages INTO may be seeking.  A filing by USF on 31 May4 notes “INTO’s damages report, by which it seeks $71.6m in damages…”.  This report is one of two produced by INTO experts, with the other considering the solvency of the joint venture.  USF has served its own expert report “related to damages it has suffered with respect to its counterclaim..”.

One impact of the expert reports is that there has been a request to extend the time for “rebuttal expert reports” from June 17 to July 11 with the 24-day extension then rippling through all other deadlines in the Discovery Schedule.  If agreed, that would lead to a deadline of October 31 for the completion of serving and  rebutting expert reports then filing and hearing dispositive and Daubert motions.  The motion notes that the extended time would also “facilitate the parties’ ability to resolve any open discovery issues..”.

While this continues, INTO is appealing5 against the summary judgement6 of the Court in favour of USF that “the SHA [Stockholder Agreement] terminated once USF sent the letter stating that it terminated the USA [University Services Agreement], a Project Agreement.”  In this judgement the Court made it clear that it was not deciding “..whether USF breached the USA or the duty of good faith and fair dealing when it terminated the USA in April 2022.  Counts II, III, IV, VII, VIII, IX, XII and XIII against USF remain for further disposition.” There seems to be a long way to go.

Do You Want To Know A Secret?

Before getting into some of the lessons and thoughts for universities raised in the Study Across the Pond (SATP) case there are some general and contextual points. The company filed a Certificate of Cancellation with the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in January 2024, citing the termination of business operations as the reason for cancellation. Across the Pond – Study in Britain Limited remains listed at Companies House in the UK with John Borhaug as a director and its website lists 86 UK universities.

The UK listed company is on the British Council Certified Agent database where it is noted “Education providers should seek appropriate legal advice on contracts” which may have some resonance for universities listed in the US proceedings. The database links back to the British Universities International Universities Association (BUILA) who worked with the British Council, Universities UK and UKCISA to establish the UK Agent Quality Framework (AQF). Unofrtunately, but perhaps symbolically, The Good Practice Guide for Providers Using Education Agents, link on the BUILA site leads to a 404 error page.

It is claimed that “Nearly all universities in the UK have now signed up..” for the AQF but as far as I am able to find no list of signatories exists which is hardly an aid to transparency for students. We know from Enroly that their partner Bangor University is one of them (more on that below) but this should be well-signposted information that is freely available. There are the usual signs here of a sector that would like to be left to self-regulate but which is less than well organized or communicative once the initial excitement and headlines caused by the announcement of a new initiative have passed.

Money Changes Everything

The Study Across the Pond (SATP) and John Borhaug case was covered by The PIE in early May and lists UK universities7 who were clients of SATP and “participated in federal student aid programs under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, and presented at least one claim for payment from those programs to the Department of Education between January 1, 2015, and the present.” Essentially, incentive/commission payments to agents are not allowed if a student is receiving federal student aid. While the universities are not defendants the allegations contain several pointers towards potential gaps in university processes, checks and balances.

Any case where there is a suspicion that universities “made false statements” or “withheld information” to independent auditors must be taken seriously.  Assertions that the institutions were submitting “false and fraudulent” claims to the US Department of Education which were “actively violating the Incentive Compensation Ban” should be ringing alarm bells at the most senior levels. Issues around internal financial controls, fake contracts and purchasing disciplines are at stake even before you get to potential reputational damage.

One of the more detailed examples involves Bangor University.  The Complaint suggests that in February 2019 the university agreed to pay commission to SATP for recruiting students, including those from the United States.  It is alleged that in early 2020 the University asked if it could put a ‘Marketing Agreement’ in place for the US “in case of audit by [the Department of Education]” with the agreement presented as being a flat rate while accepting that the amount payed would be “the equivalent of what commission would have been.” 

In March 2022 the university was considering what material to provide the Department of Education as part of its re-certification application.  The Complaint asserts that “Bangor University’s Head of International Recruitment told that employee not to send the Department the original 2019 tuition-sharing contract with defendant Study Across the Pond.”  It is claimed that this document was not sent, “effectively hiding its incentive compensation arrangement with the Defendants from the Department of Education.”

While several universities appear to have queried the legality of commission payments in the context of the Incentive Compensation Ban they seem to have accepted the word of SATP who, “consistently advised foreign schools, including the Defendants’ Clients, that their activities were not subject to the Incentive Compensation Ban.” However, the universities with concerns were invited to enter into “sham contracts” that purported to provide an annual fee for general marketing and promotion with the proviso that “the annual fee happens to be the equivalent of ‘commission’ on any students on the lists who actually enrolled.”  Phrases like “play it safe”, “in case of audit” and “..as long as we (university and [S]ATP) understand how the annual amount is calculated then that’s all that matters, since it won’t be written into a contract of any kind” were allegedly used in communications.  

This type of language should have been troubling for the international office teams and any senior university officials they discussed contracts with. If the universities were acting in good faith in accepting SATP’s advice about their status as not being subject to the Ban there would seem to be no reason for changing the contract. Changing the contract to deliberately obscure the basis of the payments seems a slippery slope which seems difficult to justify.

Finance Directors in the institution may be asking how payment was being signed off and by who when a “fixed fee” contractual sum became a different amount to match the unwritten commission payment.  This seems an inevitable consequence of the arrangements put in place.  It may also be interesting to watch whether the US Department of Education allows universities that, it is alleged, participated in this behaviour to continue to be certified in the context of the Direct Loan Program.

NOTES

All the sub-headings are song titles from songs. Sequentially, the original artists were Tom Petty (as a solo artist), the Beatles (written by Lennon and McCartney but sung by George Harrison), and The Brains (although probably better known for the cover version by Cyndi Lauper).

  1. Filing # 198160868 E-Filed 05/13/2024 12:07:44 PM
  2. Case 1:21-cv-10274-ADB in the United States District Court for the District of Massachussets
  3. The terms INTO and University of South Florida are used as short forms for the range of corporate plaintiffs and defendants. Full details and all public documents reference in this blog can be found through https://hover.hillsclerk.com/html/case/caseSearch.html the Hillsborough County Clerk of Courts search facility. Insert 22 for the year, CA-Circuit Civil for the Court type and 006001 for the case number.
  4. Filing # 199628319 E-Filed 05/31/2024 05:41:44 PM
  5. Filing # 198701412 E-Filed 05/20/2024 02:01:54 PM
  6. Order Granting Summary Judgement. January 31, 2024
  7. The full list is Aberystwyth University, Bangor University, University of Brighton, Cardiff University, University of Chester, University of East Anglia, Edinburgh Napier University, University of Essex, University of Exeter, University of Greenwich, University of Hertfordshire, University of Kent, Kingston University, University of Lancaster, University of Leeds, University of Leicester, University of Lincoln, University of Liverpool, Loughborough University, Oxford Brookes University, University of Reading, University of Sheffield, University of Southampton, University of Stirling, University of Strathclyde, Swansea University, University of Winchester, and University of York.  

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Roll on up for the greatest show in UK higher education

Text first published in University World News (08 June 2024)

The roller coaster ride of political fortune and its impact on international student recruitment continues to create a feeling of instability in higher education sectors across the globe. With talk of banning ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ a feature of United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s opening week of pre-election policy statements, the amusement park comparisons seem increasingly apt.

Particularly so when universities around the world seem addicted to pursuing gravity-defying, adrenaline-fuelled recruitment targets where the risks may increasingly outweigh the benefits.

More troubling is the possibility that the failure of universities to engage sufficiently to gain widespread public support has left them open to increasing levels of political game-playing and interference.

In several countries the fundamental value of universities and degree-level education is being questioned as never before and the intersection with immigration policy has become a toxic mix.

Where these problems are compounded by economic difficulties and a disinterested or increasingly hostile public, there is a real need for institutions to avoid being seen as theme parks run by the aloof, rich and privileged.

A Very British problem?

Universities around the UK have been finding it difficult to know whether to groan about the ending of dependant visas for postgraduate students or cheer as the Migration Advisory Committee and government confirmed that the Graduate Route to post-study work remained
open.

Politicians are sending conflicting messages, with Lord Cameron, the foreign secretary, saying: “There’s no limit on the number that can come” and aligning with Lord Bilimoria who called for ‘one million [international] students’.

Meanwhile, Lord Jo Johnson, an ex-education secretary and chair of FutureLearn whose seat on the Apply Board advisory board gives him a wider range of perspectives, cautioned: “The economic benefits are not enough to offset wider political concerns.”

In a recent blog, I drew several comparisons between the current dynamics in the UK and the themes of the 1987 British cult classic film Withnail and I. Critically, one character says: “Politics, man. If you’re hanging onto a rising balloon, you’re presented with a difficult decision. Let go before it’s too late or hang on and keep getting higher, posing the question: how long can you keep a grip on the rope?”

Some institutions are a long way from the ground, with the University of Hull, as just one example, registering a year-on-year increase of 1,207% (from 70 to 915) in students from Nigeria in 2021-22.

The folly of relying on continued growth at such pace is clear. Even before the restrictions on dependant visas, it was evident that some Russell Group institutions could not compete for recruitment from key markets with their better-placed peers in the group. They will be forced to hunt further afield for students and their presence will bring harsh competition for universities further down the feeding chain.

This comes at a time when recent agent surveys by INTO have indicated that the UK’s relative attractiveness, compared to the United States and Australia, has declined substantially since 2021.

The 65% year-on-year decline in the Nigerian naira against the UK pound has put a far more serious dent in recruitment than the loss of dependant visas.

A growing propensity for students from China to consider alternative countries and the affordability advantages of nations outside the big four recruiting countries are a growing drain on valuable sources of student interest.

Successive generations of international officers have found that economic swings are par for the course. The decline of the Tiger Economies in the late 1990s was a significant factor and there have always been ebbs and flows in national currencies, government sponsorship and other factors.

It seems possible, however, that we are now seeing more fundamental and long-lasting change and that the era of, what some consider, academic imperialism is in an accelerating doom loop.

Sticking plasters for structural failures

A subplot, as reported in University World News in March, has been the announcement by over 50 British universities of cutbacks and redundancies, which created an unlikely alliance between unions and university bosses seeking additional government funding.

However, the BBC noted this week that “universities in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire have spent over £100 million [US$128 million] making more than 6,000 staff redundant since 2015”. That raises the reasonable question as to whether some institutions with long-term declines in attracting domestic students because of courses, locations and-or poor management, have used international fees as a sticking plaster to cover wounds requiring surgery.

It’s a complex situation where the fundamental structure of UK higher education and its funding are coming under closer scrutiny. With political and public support far from guaranteed, this has led some voices in the sector to suggest that a more constructive approach would be to recognise and respond to broader concerns and constraints.

Professor Wendy Alexander, vice-principal (international) at the University of Dundee, suggested a need to be more “self-reflective”; David Pilsbury of Oxford International Education Group has said that “we still talk to ourselves too much”; and Chris Husbands, former vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University has cautioned that “we can’t expect to be given more simply to carry on doing the things we are doing”.

Before the announcement of an election and the removal of a threat to the Graduate Route, the sector seemed willing to consider these points. Subsequently, it has gone very quiet on issues such as data transparency, grade inflation and preferential treatment for international students with lower A-level grades or equivalents.

This seems a retrograde step at a point when the Conservative Party is campaigning on a platform that could close down one in eight university courses and the Labour leader has clarified a political choice to fund the NHS rather than reduce or eliminate tuition fees.

It Could Be Worse

Despite all of the above, it seems possible that the relief provided by an intact Graduate Route combined with visa issues and poor publicity in Australia and Canada could come to the rescue of the UK.

Research has shown that students are applying to more countries and it is likely that they are willing to hold out on decision-making until the last possible minute.

The US stepping up its game in terms of visa meetings in India may be another fly in the ointment for competitor countries, although there are late-breaking rumours of a deterioration in recruitment from India that will be bad news for everyone.

If the UK sector has been on a roller coaster ride, both Australian and Canadian institutions could probably make a case that they have whiplash from hastily introduced and poorly considered policies. It all seemed so promising for Australia when the Universities Accord report was produced in February 2024 and seemed to produce exactly the sort of long-term framework universities would prefer to guide decision-making.

However, Mark Scott, vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney, immediately noted that, despite underfunding being acknowledged, “it is perplexing that the only revenue-raising measure proposed is a tax on universities themselves”.

Since then, the destabilising Draft International Education and Skills Strategic Framework, with a cap on international enrolments from January 2025, has drawn strong criticism and both major parties have been competing in their anti-immigration rhetoric, with international student recruitment caught in the crossfire.

Actions on “non-genuine students”, spikes in visa rejections, changes to students’ proof of savings, threats of “significant” rises in visa fees and arguments over the impact of international students on housing availability are just some of the issues. It’s a potent cocktail that can be nothing but damaging for recruitment.

In Canada, the January 2024 federal government announcement of a two-year intake cap on international student recruitment was balanced by the exclusion of postgraduate students and the availability of an extended three-year post-graduation work permit.

There seemed little doubt that the changes mitigated against private colleges and the doubling of the cost of living requirement for students was an overdue but unwelcome addition. Had it ended there it seems possible that the storm may have blown over.

But the underlying tensions about routes to permanent residency flared again in May, with Prince Edward Island’s changes to the process leading to protests and even hunger strikes.

As with Australia, there have been, at federal and provincial level, assertions about rapid international student growth bringing “… pressure on housing, health care and other services”.

Little wonder that IDP’s Emerging Futures research from March 2024 suggested that Canada had suffered most in terms of student popularity at that time.

IDP’s research also pointed to the US becoming the top-choice destination for the first time and being the top choice for prospective students considering changing their choice of study destination.

After issuing more student visas in India in 2023 than ever before, the US embassy in India started two weeks earlier this year and increased capacity to meet demand. The US for Success Coalition is mounting a letter writing campaign urging Congress to “improve student visa processing delays and high denial rate in the Global South”.

Castles in the air or feet on the ground?

The three recruiting countries reaching levels of international student intake that are a material percentage of overall recruitment and tuition fee income seem to have reached a tipping point where government attention is increasingly focused on economic, social and political consequences.

Anti-immigration rhetoric, perhaps driven by genuine public concern, is one aspect of this, but there is a broader sense that the role of higher education in a country’s broader economic and workforce planning cannot be left to an untidy aggregation of autonomous, self-governing organisations.

Institutions must take care not to allow themselves to be positioned as educational amusement parks where ivory towers have replaced magic castles and attracting more, higher-paying customers has become more important than their domestic stakeholders.

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

Image by Pasi Mämmelä from Pixabay

UK Higher Education – A Stopped Clock

One of the most poignant moments in film is when Withnail says goodbye to Marwood1.  In the final scene we have Marwood refusing a drink and Withnail, ever the actor and alcoholic, drinking straight from a wine bottle and delivering a soliloquy to the wolves in Regents Park before walking away in the rain.  The future for both is uncertain. 

I was reminded of this as Rishi Sunak declined to take a last swig of right-wing courage by ending the Graduate Route but decided, even as the heavens opened, that it was time to say goodbye and face an uncertain future.  Meanwhile, the UK university sector has its umbrella, has raged at a largely disinterested public, considers itself “noble in reason” and “infinite in faculties”2, yet remains addicted to international student fee income.  One can imagine vice chancellors and finance directors breathing a collective sight of relief and reiterating the international recruitment version of, “I must have some booze. I demand to have some booze.”3

We want the finest wines available to humanity. And we want them here, and we want them now!

There has been much rejoicing in universities around the UK.  Looking forward it seems that the election will allow sufficient cover for another bumper year of international recruitment as the UK looks to be in slightly better shape for late-breaking students than either Canada or Australia.  Institutions with long-term declines in attractiveness because of courses, location and/or poor management will have the sticking plaster of international fees to cover the bleeding away of domestic students. 

Cover will be extended into the next few years because, on current performance, HESA probably won’t report on 2024/25 enrollments until the recruitment cycle for 2026 is nearly over.  One can also predict that the sector will lose its recent enthusiasm for better, faster data in its headlong rush to smoke the Camberwell Carrot4 of international student fee income.  They might even say the recruitment equivalent of, “All right, this is the plan. We get in there and get wrecked, then we’ll eat a pork pie, then we’ll drop a couple of Surmontil-50’s each. That means we’ll miss out Monday but come up smiling Tuesday morning.”5

There is even encouragement from that scion of poor political and lobbying judgement Lord Cameron whose statement that “there’s no limit on the number that can come” suggest he knows he will never bear Government responsibility again.  This is the David Cameron who, as Prime Minister, led the closure of the post-study work visa in April 2012 and took the calamitous decision to hold a referendum on Brexit.  He and ‘one million students’ Lord Bilimoria can sit harmoniously and enjoy their time together on the benches of the Lords unless Labour gets a second term.      

A pair of quadruple whiskies and another pair of pints, please.

The opportunity to continue recruiting at breakneck speed will be a mighty relief also to some of those universities who have found that their bigger and better placed competitors are continuing to build share.  We are likely to see a widening divide in the Russell Group, where the ability of some to take a greater share of the relatively static market in China will lead others in the Group to look elsewhere for volume.  In turn, this will mean that universities further down the pecking order will have to search wider and deeper in order to achieve the recruitment targets.

Another of the famous lines from Withnail and I is from Danny, who says, “Politics, man. If you’re hanging onto a rising balloon, you’re presented with a difficult decision. Let go before it’s too late or hang on and keep getting higher, posing the question: how long can you keep a grip on the rope?”  We have reached a point where universities have hold of the rising balloon of international student fee income and it will get further and further from the ground.  Without a crisis there is little merit or benefit for a government under economic pressure elsewhere to come to the table and discuss structural issues around funding and fee levels.

But at some point the tether breaks, the grip weakens or the balloon bursts.  It is not uncommon for parties to swing further to political extremes when they have lost an election and most of the signs are of the Conservative’s veering further right and their anti-immigration rhetoric being the basis for the next tilt at power.  Universities might want to consider whether a more measured approach to student recruitment, a better level of engagement in explaining the benefits to the public and a more transparent and timely approach to data as some defence if a more reactionary Government emerges in the future.    

Free to those that can afford it, very expensive to those that can’t

While the continuance of the graduate route has been positioned as good for international students, this is a partial view driven largely by the vested interest universities have in on campus presence.  High physical infrastructure costs and debt servicing have always hampered the willingness to develop of genuinely flexible delivery through transnational education and use of technology.  Several have argued that the higher education system championed by the developed economies is part of academic imperialism rather than a model based on equity, respect or diversity.

Every international office knows that economic swings in most countries where international students are found can have a significant impact on applications, enrollments and debtors.  The decline of the Tiger Economies in the late 1990s was a significant factor and we are seeing the fall in in the Nigerian naira have almost as much impact as the shift in dependent visas policy.  International recruitment is a financial roller coaster designed for those with strong stomachs who are usually looking for those with the biggest wallets.

That’s the real reason that the growth of International Year One has become so important to pathway operators and by dint of second and third year fees to universities.  The growth in international markets where students with inadequate grades for direct entry are willing to pay for a first year on campus is an open goal for institutions and commercial operators.  Access is certainly free for those that can afford it but denied to those domestic students who are barred from similar privilege.

We are indeed, drifting into the arena of the unwell… making an enemy of our own future…

A number of commentators have reflected that the sector has allowed itself to become a convenient political fall-guy and some voices have even called for greater self-reflection, better engagement and more thought on international student outcomes.   Economic factors would suggest there is little prospect of greater direct funding even if a government better disposed to the sector is in power come July.  The answer must surely lie in the sector taking the initiative to engage more effectively in constructive discussions about the shape and size of the sector as well as engaging more effectively with the public.

In Withnail and I, Marwood makes the comment, “What we need is harmony, fresh air, stuff like that.”  It’s good advice for the sector to seek renewed dialogue as well as new ideas that might leave it in a better place for the inevitable moment that the political pendulum swings again.  As we learn from the different endings in the film and the novel it is always possible to change the narrative if you have the will.   

NOTES

The title is from Marwood’s quote in ‘Withnail and I’ where he notes that even a stopped clock, although broken, gives the right time twice a day.  All sub-headings are quotes from the film ‘Withnail and I’1

  1. ‘Withnail and I’ is a 1987 British film focusing on two unemployed actors.   The film is an adaptation of an unpublished novel written by Bruce Robinson who also wrote and directed the film.
  2. The quotes are from Withnail’s soliloquy which is taken from Act 2, Scene 2 of Hamlet.
  3. By Withnail in ‘Withnail and I’
  4. In the film a Camberwell Carrot is explained by Withnail as, “The joint I am about to roll requires a craftsman and can utilize up to twelve spliffs. It is called a Camberwell Carrot…I invented it in Camberwell and it’s shaped like a carrot.”  It has great potency.
  5. By Withnail in ‘Withnail and I’

Image by Łukasz Dyłka from Pixabay

MAC Review with No Chips at Graduate Route

No doubt at all that the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) Rapid Review of the Graduate Route and its recommendation of “retaining the Graduate route in its current form” is good news for the UK higher education sector.  But amid the sound of high-fiving and back slapping from universities and sector bodies a close read of the Review still leaves scope for Government mischief making.  It should also be remembered that MAC’s recommendations of 2018 on a “more restrictive post-study work route” of 6 months for Master’s students was largely ignored. 

Political antennae will be twitching at the sound of Robert Jenrick’s post that “if you order white paint, you get a whitewash” and MAC has left a few open goals if James Cleverly chooses to score with his party’s right wing.  There’s an open invitation to leverage the sector “to support the government’s desired labour market objectives for the route” which could mean manipulation of Student visas as well as Graduate Route visas. He will also have his eyes on the year-on-year visa announcement of Immigration System statistics on 23 May as he considers the next steps.

Sticking to the Exam Question

The Review chose to largely confine itself narrowly to the question about the Graduate Route and declined to take the bait on some associated issues.  In doing so, however, it may have offered a road map for the Home Secretary to thank it for its work, accept the plaudits around the dependent visa reductions and then pursue a new quarry – the student visa.  He can diminish recruitment at source while celebrating that the Government’s introduction of the graduate route was correct.

The quoted objectives of the Graduate Route are so benign and wooly that it is difficult to know what to make of them:

  • “Enhance the offer to international students..ensure the UK remains internationally competitive”
  • “Retention of talent..enabling employers to recruit skilled graduates…contribut to the UK economy”
  • “Increase the number of international students in higher education…increase the value of education exports”

Of course, the Graduate Route achieves those aims because almost any competitive post-study work offering would.  What MAC notes in several passages is that changes to the student visa (such as dependent visas) are where the action is.  Yet on page 32 they are keen specify “we did not examine distinct abuse of the Student route and note that the government did not ask us to do so.” There seems to be a decent signpost for Cleverly if he chooses to follow it.

There May Be Trouble Ahead

If one was looking for trouble and reading between the lines, one can see where the Minister may choose to take guidance from the Report.  Specifically, there may be ways of managing Student route visas to give preference to high-ranking universities (however defined), supporting specific geographical locations, penalising institutions recruiting students who seek asylum and controlling the role of agents.   

  • MAC declined to engage in any assessment of whether the route secured the “brightest and the best” but nodded to the High Potential Individual visa use of league table rankings in its provider groupings while noting that “international postgraduates from lower globally ranked universities are more likely to go on to the Graduate route.”  Explicitly it says, “If the government’s aim is to retain bright international students… and by this they mean those who attend universities ranked the highest globally, then this data suggests that the Graduate route may not be attracting the global talent defined in this way.”

Other areas for caution or limited support in reflecting the value of international students are where MAC:

  • indicated that the data suggests  “students may be moving to London for work after graduating from universities in other parts of the UK”.  In that respect there may be limited evidence for international graduates contributing to any levelling up agendas;
  • reflected the difficulty of determining numbers in employment but showed a 79% match rate for Graduate visa holders and HMRC records and 68% as PAYE employees.  They caution that neither is comparable to a “normal” employment calculation.  Some would argue that this leaves some 20-30% whose employment status is, at best, unknown. It was quickly seized upon by some Conservative party commentators;
  • suggested they are “likely [to] make a small positive net fiscal contribution” which would suggest this is not a key issue for government consideration despite the efforts of the sector to suggest otherwise;
  • noted the “recent reports of an increase in asylum applications” but indicating that is an issue the government should address directly if it is a concern.     

On direct abuse there is some damning with faint praise. Basically the Review notes that there are almost no rules to be abused (which could be seen as a sign of laxness) and limited data to track whether they are overstaying. Comments include:

  • “limited number of criteria a student needs to meet to apply”,  “few restrictions for what those on the route are allowed to do in the UK” and “beyond refusal rates, there are no quantitative data sources”
  • “little evidence available on the numbers who are overstaying their visa length. The Home Office was unable to provide data on the rate of overstaying on the Graduate route.”

The biggest issue related to the potential exploitation of international students by recruitment agents “when applying under the Student route”.  This is a departure from the rest of the Review because MAC decides to very explicitly link the selling of the Graduate Route as a lure for students joining the Student Route.  They claim that HE providers and student representatives at roundtables agreed “regulation would strengthen the ability to eliminate the exploitation of students by bad actors.” 

A more heavy-handed regulation, particularly as MAC included both agents and subagents in the discussion could make for interesting times for commercial operations associated with universities.  While MAC noted that 57% of HE providers (responding to a Home Office survey) used student recruitment agents this would be 100% for aggregators and pathways.  With the growth of direct recruitment relationships with pathways operators the ownership of any quality and oversight obligations is likely to come even more under scrutiny.

Steady As She Goes (For Now)

If the government wanted MAC to provide it with hard evidence to close the Graduate Route down the gambit has failed and the sector can breathe a sigh of relief.  Short of a blatant, politically motivated disregard for the advice given and the evidence base produced the best presentation is to take the applause for introducing the Route and ensuring a globally competitive sector.  The window of opportunity for the current government to act is rapidly closing and without a clear steer from MAC it is difficult to see what the political upside is to radically changing the Graduate Route.

MAC has also provided the government with what it will consider political good news, in saying that the ban on foreign students bringing dependents was having a far bigger impact than expected.  Anything that gives Sunak a “fighting chance” of reducing net migration levels below 2019 levels before the election is likely to be received with open arms.  It’s probably a stronger case than arguing about the growing dependency of universities on foreign students.

After all that it seems appropriate to thank Professor Brian Bell and his colleagues for a decent job done in very short order and apparently without bias towards past observations.  The Review has highlighted some other aspects of student recruitment that are less palatable and it would be good if the sector took that seriously.  Perhaps some universities could also consider this a warning to moderate their approach to enrolment growth.  

Image by Enoch111 from Pixabay

Beware the Ides of MAC

Aficionados of ancient Rome will know that every month had an Ides. For March, May, July and October it fell on the 15th of the month while for the rest of the year it was the 13th. The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) Review of the Graduate Route is due to report on the 14th of May so it seems possible the detail will become clearer the next day.1

Some predict a ritual and metaphorical assassination of the higher education sector to suit the political aims of the Conservative government. It is certainly likely to be a day when, just as in ancient Rome, debts become due. Will MAC deserve the line “Et tu Brutus” from the sector if it echoes, “I come to bury Caesar not to praise him”, in its thinking on the graduate route?

The announcement of the Review led to some frantic rearguard action from the higher education sector which was cut out of the usual, drawn-out Call for Evidence, at a point when the Government needs to reassert its credibility on immigration ahead of an election. There may be some glimmers of hope but the politics seem to be overwhelmingly negative. It comes when the sector is beset by other negative stories and some well-respected voices are suggesting it is time to accept there are problems that need dealing with.

Last Throw of the Dice

It is difficult to know whether the effort from Kaplan, HEPI and the NUS to produce “The Exchequer benefits and costs associated with the Graduate Route visa” in advance of MAC’s publication is going to help. The main argument seems to be that MAC would be remiss in not taking into account the tax return from increasing numbers of international students entering the workforce on the Graduate Route. At a single stroke the students resolve the sector’s funding issues and become a part of the solution to the UK’s debt problems.

We didn’t really need a long and technical paper to tell us that if people go into the workplace they pay tax and contribute to the Exchequer and that if you have more of them they pay more. What the paper doesn’t say is that a logical extension of this self-serving argument would be that if the period of post-study work was extended to five years or even indefinitely, international graduates would pay even more tax. It’s unspoken because, while more years of post study work would probably attract even more international students to UK universities, it would make the student visa look more like a route to residency which most agree is politically unacceptable.

One eye catching and unhelpful point about the report is that it estimates 21% of the Graduate Route visa holders are not in paid employment. That seems a big number and some might suggest that the number is even larger because those not in employment are less likely to respond to being asked their status. It will be interesting to see if MAC has got the linking of HMRC and visa records to give more insight.

A Government, of whatever political persuasion, is more likely to believe that if there are jobs to be filled the better answer is to deal with the UK’s long-term sickness issues.2 At a single stroke you reduce the cost of welfare, get the tax benefit of having more people in work and don’t have to pay the political price of relying on overseas workers. Both main parties know, from the sector’s own research, that the majority of the British public want the same or fewer international students.

Glimmers of Hope

Even if the Report doesn’t go a long way towards changing anybody’s mind there are other straws to cling to. Much has been made of the decline in student visas issued in the first quarter of 2024 being a strong signal for the Government not to “overcorrect” on the issue by taking further action. The Home Office deadpanned by saying that, “the full effect of recent policy changes and any other impacts” would not be known until the peak in applications in August and September.

The decline in dependent visas is a big headline number but commentators including Dave Amor have noted dependent visas are only back to 2021 levels and while main applicants are down “applications without dependents sounds like they are up.” There is also the impact of the decline in Nigeria’s currency driving some of the changes. For a Government under pressure from its own back-benches on immigration it seems unlikely the numbers are down enough.

In that respect, the timing of the MAC review is interesting in that Cleverly demanded a mid-May response without any clear or evident reason. It may be that he plans to take its recommendations and use them, either positively or negatively, for a publicity blitz around the release of the “Immigration system statistics, year ending March 2024” scheduled for 9.30am on 23 May, 2024. The platform provided by the first quarter figures, the MAC review, and then the yearly figures is a decent campaigning rhythm to reinforce his statement that “Over the coming months, we will continue to show the pace of our progress as we deliver the control the public rightly expect.” It may even be the first bit of positioning for a post-election leadership run.

Let’s Get Cynical

The politics of the matter seem simple and the defection of Tory MP Natalie Elphicke to Labour with the accusal, “It’s clear they [the Tory government] have failed to keep our borders secure and cannot be trusted” will only have hardened the lines. The imperative is to retake control of the immigration debate, challenge Labour’s position ahead of the general election and perhaps even reduce their flexibility if they form the next Government. The interests of the higher education sector do not even feature in that calculation.

The last Labour government has long been known for leaving the infamous note for the incoming Chancellor, “I’m afraid there is no money”. It haunted them in future elections and it is doubtful that the Conservatives will make the same mistake. Far better to hand Labour an impoverished sector and draw a distinctive line on post-study work rights that makes it even harder to patch over gaps in funding with international student fee revenue.

So, the Conservative’s would gain twice by limiting post-study work. The immediate gain is the impression of firm government, a populist stance on a divisive issue and a sop to the troublesome right wing of the party. In the longer term, presuming an election loss, it hands the incoming Government a significant and worsening university funding situation with limited room for maneuver without seeming soft on immigration.

Pathway Woes

Almost a sideshow for now are the other reviews set in motion when the Sunday Times set a hare running with its slightly ill-formed attack on international pathways. Universities UK leapt into action with a review by the Quality Assurance Agency that seems likely to report in June 2024 (if the link with the scope is correct). The Department of Education was instructed to “investigate allegations of bad practice by agents” although it’s a little difficult to find when any outcome is expected.

Pathway operators and by default universities could really do with the reviews not hampering the growth of International Year One programmes or requiring significant policing of agent activity. Times are tough enough already. Evidence of that came with the completion of reporting from INTO’s joint venture portfolio showing that INTO enrollments were still 23.6% down on 2018 for continuing joint venture businesses.

In a previous iteration of this graph in another blog and before reporting from INTO University of East Anglia, I had presumed that the joint venture would have made some progress in 2022/23. In reality there was a further collapse from 310 to 241 students year on year which puts it 62.8% down on 2018. The only bright spot was that the wholly owned Manchester operation hit record high numbers in the year.

Source: INTO Joint Venture Annual Reports

The success of INTO Manchester seems ironical given the probability that Navitas was favourite for the £150m Embedded International Study Center contract at Manchester Metropolitan University. Uncertainties around UK international student visas seem likely to have held up further progress at a point when Navitas must already have been smarting at losing the University of Leicester and University of Northampton as partners. Evidence of another pathway operator with some issues to resolve is Kaplan at the University of York.

Just for completeness, on what some consider the ‘big four’, are the problems at Study Group which were exacerbated by the Daily Mail singling them out in a front page splash as sponsoring 804 student who then claimed asylum. The Mail makes much of the “secret Home Office database” as the source of the story but at least as far back as March 2023 the UK Visas and Immigration Study Sector Brief was noting the trend. Any suggestion student visas are being subverted in order to secure a permanent place in the UK will be used as further evidence the sector is out of control.

Voices of (T)reason

In that context there was a small breath of fresh air from Professor Wendy Alexander at the recent International Higher Education Forum conference in May 2024. She is reported as urging the sector, “We really need to be a little more self-reflective about it. The first way to build trust is to concede there was a problem..”. In that respect she echoes a broader point made by ex-Sheffield Hallam vice chancellor, Professor Chris Husbands, who in July 2023 was suggesting the sector was in danger of “tacitly defending a system that it knows is not sustainable.”

Jo Johnson and Vivienne Stern have also been talking the language of avoiding “over-correction” and “serious overcorrection” which seems to be code for accepting that a correction was reasonable and maybe an acceptance that the sector has lost the argument for the status quo. Slightly off-topic but it was amusing to see Johnson suggesting that the Teaching Excellence Framework should be the guiding light for allowing universities to raise domestic fees. Of 228 universities in TEF 2023 only three were ranked as “requires improvement” overall (11 were requiring improvement on student experience and 9 on student outcomes). Basically, he meant all universities.

Tom Petty suggested that “the waiting is the hardest part” but there is good reason to think that the reality might become even tougher after May 14th. Even then, the sector’s problems aren’t all about international tuition fee revenue even though it has offered a sticking plaster for a few years. The old stock market dictum “sell in May then go away, don’t come back until St Leger’s Day” is a good idea for anyone considering UK universities or university pathway operators as a good bet. Come September some of the dust will have cleared and we may even be seeing the election warming up with policy statements on the future shape and size of higher education.

NOTES

  1. It doesn’t really matter if not. The headline just had to be written and justified.
  2. Both parties are focusing on the issue of the growth in long-term sickness and solutions are likely to form part of the election agenda. The Conservatives, not surprisingly, are calling it as ‘sick note culture’ while Labour has accepted that a problem exists and is “..threatening the future of the sustainability of our finances and the future of our public services”

Image by Gino Crescoli from Pixabay

From A Blip To A Trend

One of the problems with the delay in HESA data is that it is difficult to tell whether blips are becoming trends. Domestic and international recruitment are changing quickly but if information is two years out of date it’s like trying to drive full speed on a motorway while looking in the rear-view mirror. My advice is not to try it.

There are some universities that have driven up international numbers in the short-term while presiding over declining domestic enrolments for several years. If any of the universities have chosen to follow a path of fewer domestic students and more international it would be reasonable for them to be explicit about how far they intended to go if Government policy had not changed. Being opportunistic and following the money to make ends meet is not quite the same as having a strategy.

A closer look at some universities also indicates a pattern of longer term restructuring, redundancies and cutbacks which suggests more fundamental problems. This should be the cause for discussion about the funding issues of individual universities rather than an appeal for a taxpayer underwritten handout to the whole sector. It may be that changes in attitudes to higher education, emerging workforce issues and developing global competition requires widespread restructuring.

In the following analysis the University of Hull’s enrolment figures from its annual report are used for consistency while the University of Kent and University of South Wales enrolment to 2021/22 are taken from HESA data with the fee income figure in the 2022/23 university annual report indicating the 2022/23 enrollment1.

Abundance from (over) the sea2

As noted in previous blogs the University of Hull’s performance in recruitment from Nigeria in 2021/22 delivered an uplift from 70 to 915 students year on year. It would be a surprise if the fall in visa applications for study driven by a decline in the naira and the loss of dependent visas for PGT students isn’t causing some alarm bells to ring. The university’s Annual Report and Statement of Accounts offers an insight suggesting the international enrolment bandwagon rolled on into 2022/23 although whether there was diversification of country of origin is not clear.

Full time International Tuition fee income grew by over £12m from 2020/21 to 2021/22 and then by a further £8m to 2022/23. The University’s figures indicate that it had 4,080 fewer “standard provision” domestic students in 2022/23 than 2017/18 – a fall of 30.8%. Domestic student enrollments appear to have fallen by 1,196 (11.6%) from 2021/22 to 2022/23 alone.

If domestic students are rejecting the University of Hull there seems to be a much more fundamental question to ask about its strategy, focus and future. This question should not be obscured simply because it can remain viable by recruiting international students whose main motivation is to secure post-study work.

Source: University of Hull Annual Report and Statement of Accounts

Since 2018/19 the university has had a “fundamental restructuring staff costs” line itemized in its expenditure and has spent £15.8m on this across the five years. Back in 2019 the university was suggesting that “One of the areas identified where we can be leaner and make efficiency savings, is in our professional services areas (i.e. non-academic areas such as support staff and back office functions).

The Staff by Major Category notes in the annual report show that the restructurings resulted in 239 fewer staff over five years with 132 lost from academic departments and 52 from central student services, while Central Admin has grown by 14. There may be a categorization issue but Academic Departments are down a net 96 on central admin and student services. If the growth in staff numbers in 2022/23 was driven by servicing growing numbers of international students, it is not surprising that there may be redundancies if numbers decline.

Source: University of Hull Annual Report and Statement of Accounts

Unconquered (yet)3

There is a similar but less financially successful story at the University of Kent which has recently joined the long list of institutions announcing redundancies. This is despite a five-year history of restructuring costs costing £25m and ending up, in total, with just seven fewer staff in 2022/23 than in 2018/19. The graph shows the relative movement of Academic, Research and Academic Related staff – down a net 56 when aggregated – while clerical are up 44. Back in July 2020 the University of Kent was reported to be considering cutting “almost 150 full-time jobs” but given its trajectory this seems to have been unsuccessful.

Source: University of Kent Financial Statements

Meanwhile, there has been an ongoing decline in domestic students stretching back over most of the period with a belated and modestly successful bid to increase international student fee income in the past two years. While the University does not give an update on its recruitment in the 2022/23 Annual Report and Financial Statements it does note circumstances “..resulting in an unexpected downturn in the number of students returning to complete their studies after the Summer 2022 break.” The direction of travel on the 2022/23 Full-time home tuition fees would suggest that things have not improved.

Sources: HESA for student numbers and University of Kent Financial Statements for fee income

Almost plaintively the 2022/23 Annual Report notes, “The University acknowledges that it can’t continue operating in a deficit position..” this is after four underlying deficits, of £12m (2022/23), £15.3m (2021/22), £12m (2019/20), and £7.9m (2018/19), in the last five years. The report goes on to say that the forecast for 2023/24 “… is that we will again make a deficit, of approximately £31m..”. There must surely be fundamental questions about the university’s long-term viability or at the very least whether the management team is capable of bringing it back to sustainability.4

Success through endeavour (and international recruitment)5

The University of South Wales was formed in 2013 from the University of Glamorgan and the University of Wales, Newport. Over the past five years the number of full-time UK students has fallen at an accelerating rate from 13,405 to 12,915 according to HESA data. The Home/EU tuition fee income posted for 2022/23 suggests that the story will continue the same trend.

However, since 2019/20 the University has increased its full-time international student population from 1445 to 3625. Again, the income in 2022/23 indicates that the trend will have continued. One of the key questions is whether international student recruitment is simply being used to paper over fundamental issues about the University’s attraction to home students, its purpose and its future.

Sources: HESA for student numbers and University of South Wales Financial Statements for tuition income

When the University of South Wales announced redundancies in 2024 the reasoning suggested by vice-chancellor Dr Ben Calvert was that it’s “…due to a significant rise in non-returning students and running costs.” Digging deeper suggests that the university may have more deep-rooted problems. Back in 2022 the issue was the same, with Dr Calvert saying, “We have seen a 6.1% decrease in our returning students compared to last year.” It is claimed elsewhere that the Newport campus has faced a 75% drop in students since 2010 with suggestions that 10,000 has become 2,500.

Back in 2017 the university announced that 137 redundancies were required “..as it [the university] tried to balance rising costs with an expected drop in students” but the number of redundancies became 57 after negotiation. This came after the opening, in 2014 and then closure in 2015, of a London campus that failed to recruit any students but received investment despite, it is claimed, the Carleon campus in Wales being closed with 145 jobs at risk. This feels like an institution that has long-term, fundamental issues requiring attention.

Finding Ways Forward

There may be good reasons, at each university, for every decision but the histories here reinforce that the UK higher education sector is a patchwork of individual institutions who have specific histories. geographies and problems. There seems enough evidence, in some institutions, of management travelling hopefully or being ill-equipped to be effective and there are questions as to whether the governance role of University councils is adequate. It certainly seems unlikely that there are a sufficient number of high-quality decision makers available to lead more than 150 institutions working in complex and volatile markets.

A blank cheque underwritten by the taxpayer is unlikely to solve some of the structural problems in the sector. It certainly wouldn’t resolve problems caused by poor management decisions, overly optimistic forecasting, or deep-seated domestic student enrolment problems. Neither would it solve any problems caused by declining student demand for higher education or for specific universities and what they offer.

If the answer to the financial issues in the sector is international recruitment then there should probably be a dialogue about the type of recruitment and the work-force implications. Given the national implications this should not be left to the wit or aspirations of individual institutions. There may be a rational decision for Government to make that means international students are explicitly and openly encouraged so that agreed numbers of domestic students can be recruited at an acceptable cost to taxpayers.

Allocating capped international numbers against specific universities should not be too difficult a task and could consider the local economy’s ability to sustain and house them. It is no secret that some parts of the UK job-market would struggle without international graduates taking roles but it seems reasonable that they are not used as a means of depressing wages. There might even be merit in following the Australian example of extended post-study work for international students working in specific localities.

NOTES

  1. The assumption is that as the domestic fee for domestic undergraduates has not changed between years and domestic PG numbers are relatively small, any significant decline in domestic fee income is aligned with a decline in domestic enrollments. It seems to work for years up to 2022/23 and the HESA data, if it ever arrives, will give us a fuller picture.
  2. Hull History Centre tells us that the city of Kingston upon Hull (usually referred to as Hull) does not have a motto. A heraldry enthusiast offered both in 1946 with the Latin, Mare Copia (Abundance from the Sea). A tweak seems appropriate in the context of international student recruitment.
  3. The motto of the county of Kent is the Latin, Invicta (Unconquered). Recent performance – both financial and in recruitment terms – might mean that the university cannot claim the same.
  4. The University of Kent President and vice-chancellor, Professor Karen Cox, resigned this month after being in the role since 2017. Views on her tenure can be read on Kent Online.
  5. Success through Endeavour is the motto of the University of South Wales. It seems appropriate to note that the Welsh translation offered by Googe Translate is Llwyddiant trwy ymdrech.

As always, the blog attempts to understand, interpret and offer an honest opinion on the data available in the context of broader issues in higher education. In the event that there are any errors of fact or interpretation a correction will be made if an authoritative response is provided to the author.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

In The Doldrums

The doldrums were a miserable place for sailors in the age of sail because it was an area where the trade winds converged but a lack of surface winds meant they might be becalmed for weeks in hot, muggy weather. It’s not a bad metaphor for the higher education sector as it awaits the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) review on 14 May and reviews of pathway courses commissioned by Universities UK and the Government after the Sunday Times “cash for courses” reporting. All of this while the signs of recovery from the pandemic are patchy and international applications have foundered after changes to visas for dependents.

For pathway operators almost entirely reliant on international students the outcomes might make it feel more like the “horse latitudes”1 where it was suggested survival was about knowing what to keep what to keep and what to throw overboard. Rumours of delayed investments and potential sales are also swirling around the sector as the uncertainty makes the future even more opaque than usual. There are few guarantees of future growth.

The past month has seen a degree of information about some UK pathway performance in 2022/23 emerge as annual accounts have been published at Companies House. While the financial years of the main pathway operators are not consistent some of the major players and their operating subsidiaries2 do have similar year ends. This blog focuses on operations where figures for 2022/23 are available.

Navitas

Overall, Navitas had a strong year in 2023 (year ending 30 June 2023) with its overall financial statement indicating a rise from 7,605 to 10,869 student enrolments.

Source: Navitas UK Holdings Limited Annual Reports

However, Navitas has lost two universities from its portfolio for Autumn 2024 enrolments with the University of Leicester and University of Northampton both terminating their pathway college contracts. On the face of it the Leicester decision was surprising given that the Global Study Centre appeared to have a student enrolment driven turnover growth of over 50% from 2021/22 to 2022/23. Northampton’s figures are still pending.

At a more granular level there are still a number of operational reports at individual college level to come for 2022/23 but up until 2021/22 Brunel and Hertfordshire had shown consistent growth in turnover (generally confirmed as being largely due to student enrolment growth) since 2019 while the ventures at Portsmouth, Swansea and Cambridge Ruskin appeared to be struggling. The scale of Northampton and Leicester is relatively small by this comparison and it may be that enrolment numbers have not met expectations.

Source: Individual Annual Reports

During 2023 Navitas appeared to be the likely winner of the contract tender for the proposed Manchester Metropolitan Embedded International Study Centre. The £150m contract was due to start in November 2023 which was the point at which Navitas changed the name of an existing company (Navitas UK College Limited) to Manchester Met IC. Not a peep since then but it has been amusing to see INTO University Partnerships posting on LinkedIn about its relationship with Manchester Metropolitan University in recent days. Perhaps a reminder to the university’s leadership that there are options.

Navitas has also been among those at the forefront of the charge to introduce the International Year One pathways that have been of particular concern to some commentators because there is no comparable option for domestic students. It remains unclear if any of the reviews will specifically consider this route but any restrictions would be damaging for future recruitment. Having acquired Study Group’s interests in Australia last year it may be that the business will look for a similar boost in the UK.

INTO University Partnerships (INTO)

With all of INTO’s UK joint venture partnerships except UEA having reported on 2022/23 it seems that enrolments from continuing UK operations have not even returned to 2018 levels let alone 2019. The problems at UEA have been discussed at length and it seems possible that a more aggressive recruitment strategy from the university might begin to pay dividends. With joint ventures struggling there is a bright spot at the wholly owned INTO Manchester which saw a second year of strong growth and enrolments up at a record 1112.

Source: Joint Venture Annual Reports (INTO UEA 2023 enrolment is an indicative figure pitched just below the 2020 enrolment figure which would represent an increase of 61% on 2022). INTO Newcastle is 51% owned by INTO.

At a corporate level INTO’s adjusted turnover3 was up from £141m to £160m year on year in 2022/23. Although the portfolio is global there has been little evidence of accelerating growth in US partners, even for direct recruitment, and the shadow of the court-case with University of South Florida seems to lengthen in terms of time before resolution. The INTO annual report indicates that what were historically shown as joint venture debtors are now shown as loans to joint ventures with almost all at higher levels than in 2019.

INTO’s early USP of 30-year deeply embedded joint venture partnerships with universities appears to have lost out to third-party, shorter-term contracts in both the UK and US. Winning Lancaster University in 2023 must have boosted morale, even though it’s not a joint venture, but geographical location, high entry standards and lack of Russell Group glitz made the university a notoriously hard sell for previous pathway providers Study Group, so the jury is still out. In the absence of a differentiated offer, several partnerships already shuttered and no real sign of a return to the boom days it is not easy to see how the company reinvents and reinvigorates itself.

Rumours of a sale earlier in the year seem to have quietened down which is no surprise given the uncertainties facing the UK. However, a number of sources have indicated that Navitas were a suitor before the pandemic and a trade sale would at least offer the benefit of consolidation in the sector and significant overhead savings. The current trading outlook and sector uncertainties do not seem strong or certain enough to attract a premium price but if the future looks no brighter there may be little point in waiting.

Kaplan

Kaplan’s corporate year end is December so we won’t get that update until later in 2024 but their joint venture international college with the University of York has a financial year aligned with the INTO operations. The 2022/23 results make stark reading and underpin that even for Russell Group universities the path is not smooth. The University’s overall recruitment problems have made the headlines and the Kaplan machine seems to be having an equal struggle at pathway level. While specific student enrolment numbers are not published the turnover and operating profit figures suggest a continuing and serious decline.

Source: University of York International College Annual Reports

As a point of contrast, INTO’s joint venture with Exeter, another Russell Group university, has shown growth post pandemic. It is twice the size of the Kaplan joint venture and Exeter is probably a stronger international brand than York. The likelihood is that both will be affected even more as global competition bites and if recruitment from China does not pick up.

Sources: INTO Exeter Annual Reports

None of this is to suggest that Kaplan’s overall performance can be extrapolated from the situation at the University of York but coterminous financial year end dates at two Russell Group universities offer a reasonable point of comparison.

When Zones Converge

The doldrums is known more properly as the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone and while people are always keen to talk about “perfect storms” affecting the higher education sector it seems to me that the forces currently converging may be more like a deep freeze. Feynman argued that even at absolute zero atoms still have some motion but it is fair to say that movement could become the exception rather than the rule. It is not an attractive outcome.

NOTES

  1. The “horse latitudes” are about 30 degrees north and south of the equator. They are under a high-pressure ridge which creates a dry environment (unlike the doldrums which have moist air). The name derives from stories that ships that became becalmed had to throw horses overboard in order to conserve water. Alternatively, it is suggested horse effigies were thrown into the sea to celebrate working off what was known as “dead horse” debt. A third explanation suggests the use of the term “horsed” for when a sail ship uses a strong current rather than wind to progress.
  2. As a general guide, most universities finish their financial year on 31 July each year, INTO has aligned its corporate and joint ventures with that and Navitas seems to have settled on 30 June in the UK. Kaplan International Colleges UK Limited and Study Group Holdings UK Limited are both 31 December year end but the Kaplan joint venture with University of York has a 31 July year end.
  3. Three of INTO University Partnerships’ “Key Performance Indicators” have adjustments which mean caution should be exercised in interpreting them. Adjusted turnover removes discontinued operations of which there have been at least ten since 2015.

Image by 851878 from Pixabay