Navitas – View From A Bridge – management, education and personal thoughts

INTO AT WORK IN A LAND DOWN UNDER*

Rumours of INTO University Partnerships (INTO) striking a deal with the University of Western Australia (UWA) seem to be gathering pace**. It’s certainly clear that Study Group’s operation aligned with UWA, Taylor’s College, is closing in December 2021 and is currently not accepting any more students. Meanwhile UWA has announced the opening of UWA College, a new pathway institution, in February 2022 and it sounds as if this could be where INTO has landed its first ‘partnership’ in Australia.

The loss of UWA takes Study Group down to three university partners in Australia, according to its website, but it continues with its links to the top-ranked Australian National University and University of Sydney. Navitas currently lists 11 Australian partners with only one from the Go8. Just for the record that’s Adelaide which also appears on Kaplan’s list of three partners.

INTO’s entry into the Australian fray makes it the newcomer and comes some years after casting eyes at the opportunities . Discussions with La Trobe (currently a Navitas partner) were fairly advanced in the early 2010’s and there were other flirtations. The questions – why now and why Perth – would lead to an understanding of whether this is opportunism, an emerging strategy for diversification or a desperate throw of the dice.

The company’s problems with losing partners have been well rehearsed in recent months but there seemed some logic to taking joint ventures accruing debts to INTO out of the portfolio. While it is doubtful that all the decisions to close were driven by INTO, the remaining partners include some top names in the UK at a point when international recruitment is bouncing back. Almost every pathway group has had to take some pain with closures in the US so INTO’s troubles there were not uncommon.

It still seems something of a leap to take on a new partner in a country where the company has no infrastructure and limited operational experience. Even more so at a point when that country has a very uncertain path to being able to welcome international students back in the numbers it once enjoyed. It’s also reasonable to say that Perth has not historically been the epicentre for international student growth in Australia and that enrollment has lagged behind the country’s impressive upward curve to 2019.

Sources: UWA Annual Report (showing student load) and Australian Department of Education Skills and Employment

While UWA is one of the Group of 8 of top universities in Australia but is also behind some of the more illustrious names in terms of global ranking and attractiveness to international students. So, even when the borders reopen there is little to suggest that UWA will be at the front of mind for international students looking to find a top ranked university. All the while, there is also the drumbeat of Australian politicians and pundits who are keen to see the 2020 reduction in international student numbers go down even further to reduce university dependence on international fees.

	THE 2021 Global Rank	QS Global Rankings 2022	% of international students (THE measure)
University of Melbourne	31	37	48
University of Sydney	51	38	43
Australian National University	59	27	47
University of Queensland	62	47	38
Monash University	64	58	43
UNSW Sydney	67	43	44
University of Adelaide	118	108	29
University of Western Australia	139	93	29
Uni of Technology Sydney	160	133	36
University of Canberra	184	436	36

Business Insider Australia and other publications have set out the broader risks to Australia’s booming international student market as its Government struggles to find ways to allow inward mobility. UWA has taken the opportunity to roll out $40m in ‘structural cost cuts’, including ‘university-wide redundancies’ while flagging heavy investment in its campus. All of this plays out against the background of continuing tensions between the governments of Australia and China with the latest spat over the Great Barrier Reef and complaints at the World Trade Organisation being just the latest examples.

It is fair to say that the jury is out on how soon and how robustly Australia will return to the international student recruitment party. Those who have travelled the scene for many years know better than to write them off and they have overcome dips in enrollments before. But the resurgence of the UK, the Biden bounce and Canada’s continuing surge means that the competitive market they face will be more challenging than ever before.

All in all the link up, if it is confirmed, seems out of context for a business that has focused so heavily on the US for the past five years. The geopolitics of the enrollment potential are also difficult to divine at this stage and may make the partnership a harder sell. It’s going to be interesting to watch and see if INTO find it the “land of plenty” or whether those making the decision will think they’d “better run…better take cover.”*

NOTES

* It’s sometimes irresistible to allude to the mighty Men At Work and their song Down Under which topped charts around the world between 1981 and 1983. In September 1983 it was adopted as the theme song by the crew of Australia II in their successful challenge for the America’s Cup yacht trophy.

** As always, I would welcome any clarification or correction from an authoritative source at the University of Western Australia or INTO University Partnerships and amend the copy accordingly.

Image by Katrina_S from Pixabay

Canadian HE Pathways – An Open then Shut Case?

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

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

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

Western May Need “Urgent Assistance” To Recruit

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

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

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

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

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

The Bigger Picture and the Potential Trap

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

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

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

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

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

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

US PATHWAY SECTOR FACES DOUBLE WHAMMY UNDER ENROLLMENT PRESSURE

It appears that the cull of pathway operations in the US has further to go. The Navitas website suggests that Global Student Success Programs at UMass Lowell, UMass Dartmouth and Florida Atlantic University have been discontinued. All of them throw up the message, “The Global Student Success Program is no longer accepting new applications..” * It’s the same story for Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Idaho links.

Looking more deeply, the figures from UMass Lowell show a precipitous drop in Navitas enrollments from 187 in Fall 2016 to just 81 in Fall 2018. The numbers for 2019 aren’t available on the university site but a further dip seems likely. If these are permanent closures it brings Navitas down to three pathways in US from eight at its peak. Overall, the number of on-campus pathways in the US may have fallen to around 40 and its little wonder some are making a “pandemic sales pitch” that they are really masters of online technology.

With the pressure on US international enrollments growing year by year it’s difficult to see that there is a lot of good news to come. Rumours abound and are difficult to verify but in recent weeks I’ve been told of a pathway run by one of the big two operators at a top 200 east coast university that is looking at a 70% decline in enrollments year on year. It’s a very long way from the suggestion made in 2014 by Parthenon Group partner Karan Khemka, that “We anticipate that growth will be constrained only by the pace at which private providers can develop the market.”

We are seeing a wholesale realignment of the pathway sector but alongside that there may also be a double whammy as universities seek to renegotiate commercial terms in the light of changing market conditions. For example, the University of South Carolina Board of Trustee minutes from April 2019 make for interesting reading as they reflect on the changing nature of the university’s deal with Shorelight. The initial deal had been signed for seven years in 2015 and the proposal was to re-sign for another seven but with “better financial terms for the University”.

One big shift indicated was that USC would be allowed to keep 90% of the tuition paid by students in years following the pathway and pay Shorelight 10% of the tuition. Under the initial agreement the split was 83% to USC and 17% to Shorelight, so on an out of state, undergraduate student fee of $16,700 that’s a cut of just over $1,100 a year per student. It’s worth remembering that Shorelight noted early in their history that, “not only does the university not contribute anything upfront to get the program off the ground…but Shorelight reimburses the university for any expenses as it’s getting off the ground.”

The obvious question for traditional pathways is how they remain sustainable when the university is bearing none of the start up costs, and if the provider’s revenue share from students going into the university is being reduced. In a recent blog I looked at the growing inter-company debt between INTO University Partnerships and its US pathways where, the collective debt owed by five joint ventures open for at least five years, had from under $5m to nearly $15m. The closure of the pathway at INTO’s partner Marshall University came as enrollments fell and inter-company debt rose sharply.

While $1100 a student doesn’t sound very much the real point is that this becomes a loss of $110,000 a year if you have 100 students progressing and $330,000 over the lifetime of the cohort. Add to that the increasing cost of acquisition of each student as global competition increases and the basic economics of a pathway come under serious pressure.

It also raises the question as to how sustainable are the remaining pathway operations as the US faces another bleak year for international enrollment. A recent Open Doors survey reported 52% of US universities indicating a decline in enrollments for 2020. Navitas research with agents recently suggested that declining student mobility and growing unpopularity could see the US lose between 160,000 and 350,000 international students.

Alongside the well-known and longer-term internal issues facing students who might previously have seen the US as their preferred option there is little doubt that competition is playing an increasingly important role. The UK has made good headway and become a more popular destination this year which has led to an increase in undergraduate enrollment from China of 14% this year. Canada continues to provide an attractive option with clear routes to citizenship that have been particularly successful in attracting Indian students in recent years.

Supply and demand are powerful and remorseless market disciplinarians. The dash for growth in the US pathways came supported by over $1bn of private money flowing into the sector, but the economics of creating more and more supply at a point when demand was slowing have become evident. With global competition for students increasing, student mobility threatened and universities finding alternative means of reaching the market – particularly online – it’s probably a hard road ahead.

*As always I am happy to have authoritative corrections or clarifications and will record them.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Another Canadian University Pathway Coming Soon?

Pathway operators have been focused on getting contracts with universities in Canada for several years but there has been little real momentum. All the more interesting to catch rumours of Navitas nearing a breakthrough with Ryerson University. It’s worth having a look at whether there’s any strength to them.

Exhibit one would be the university’s Senate Meeting Agenda of 1 October 2019. Pages 78 to 83 have a summary of meetings ‘from the President’s Calendar’ and there, hiding in plain sight on page 82, is the entry:

Jul 29, 2019: Over dinner, I met with Rod Jones, group CEO for Navitas worldwide; Scott Jones, nonexecutive chair of the board for Navitas worldwide; and Brian Stevenson, president and CEO, university partnerships, Navitas North America. We discussed the potential for Ryerson to bring in international students through the pathways to university education that Navitas offers.

The information had previously been shared at the Board of Governors meeting on September 20, 2019. So we know that Ryerson’s President Mohamed Lachemi has been meeting with senior people from Navitas although that might not be considered unusual. But there’s a little bit more to report.

Recent social media shows President Lachemi escaping the Canadian winter in the past couple of weeks and ‘expanding Ryerson’s relationships with leading universities’ in Australia. This might be unexceptional but the twittersphere also suggests visits to Griffith College and Deakin College – two Navitas centers – arranged by Navitas. And it sounds like there have been more meetings with senior Navitas folk.

There’s no way of confirming the market gossip and I am always happy to clarify the situation if an authoritative source gets in touch. Ryerson has certainly been in conversation with at least one external operator in the past but given the rise of Canada as an international student recruitment magnet it’s questionable what benefits such a relationship brings. Some commentators might argue they could organize themselves to take advantage of the momentum behind enrollments.

Once clue might be that Ryerson looks to have been left lagging despite the surge in interest for the country with the world’s longest bi-national land border. There are thirty Canadian universities listed in the THE 2020 World Ranking top 1000 and the percentage of international students at Ryerson is the lowest of all. At 4% it is well behind other, admittedly higher ranked, Toronto institutions like the University of Toronto (21%) and York University (24%).

Ryerson’s global ranking in the THE ranking 601-800 bracket places it behind the other Navitas partners in Canada. The University of Manitoba is ranked in the 351-400 bracket and has 17% international students and Simon Fraser University is in the 251-300 bracket with 30% international students. This might suggest that there is plenty of scope for Ryerson to grow with the right sort of support.

It would be the third public research university to partner with Navitas and would give the portfolio added depth. The only other pathway provider with representation in Canada is Study Group who have one public research university in Royal Roads and two sub-degree colleges in Stenberg and the Center for Arts and Technology.

With US enrollments still struggling and the maturity of the UK and Australian pathway markets it’s easy to see why there is interest in Canada. Interest remains strong amongst students and agents with little sign of applications slowing. But everyone with a history in international recruitment knows that past performance is no guarantee of future success.

The international student boom in Canada has come with some issues that are increasingly grabbing the headlines. There are allegations of students being ‘duped by unscrupulous agents’, scarcity of part-time work and up to 39% of study visa applications being rejected. It’s difficult to believe that interest will slump quickly or precipitously but it may be time for wise heads to consider what a sustainable rate of growth might look like.

Image by David Peterson from Pixabay

MORE US PATHWAY RUMORS AS THE MARKET TIGHTENS

Things seem to be moving fast as the big pathway players realise that winter is coming, both physically and metaphorically, to their US operations. Hot on the heels of the recent Study Group closures there are strong rumors of Navitas reviewing its US partnerships and cutting staff. Shorelight has also taken action through changes to its senior management team and staff lay-offs in the past month.

The Navitas partner changes are still at the point of speculation and no brand names have been removed from the list of partners as of today. But the ‘Search Navitas programs’ area of the website turns up no results for Virginia Commonwealth University, Richard Bland College or University of Idaho. Searches for University of New Hampshire courses lead to a broken ‘this page isn’t working’ link.* By contrast the Florida Atlantic University pages, UMass and Queen’s College pages seem fine, as do the Canadian university partner links.

Dr Brian Stevenson took up the reins as CEO and President of Navitas’ University Partnerships North America division at the start of this year. With his strong links to Canada it’s possible that there is a major shift of emphasis that would reflect the continuing popularity of Canada as a student destination. There certainly seems little prospect of any but the best or most market-oriented US universities being a profitable proposition in the near future.

In October InsideHigherEd noted the decline in Chinese student enrollments and its potential impact on US universities but the next news might be about the changing preferences of students from India. 2019 saw the UK have a 42% year on year increase in visas issued to Indian students and there is every sign that the coming year will see similar growth. With changes in post-study work visas coming into effect for 2020 enrollments universities and pathways are already reporting substantial interest.

Back in 2014 Karan Khemka, then a partner with the Parthenon Group, said: “The U.S. third-party/outsourced pathway market is less than half the size of the Australian market despite having a higher education system that is 10 times the size. We anticipate that growth will be constrained only by the pace at which private providers can develop the market.” That was one of the drivers for over $1bn of private investment being made in pathways.

The reality is that, with CEG and EC leaving the market, Study Group cutting back and Navitas now looking hard at its options, the past 18 months has seen a decrease of well over 10% in the number of US pathways. By contrast the UK and European pathway market continues to grow and Australia has just loosened its post-study visa regime a little further. It seems likely that this is the prevailing direction of travel for the foreseeable future.

*Searches undertaken on 30 October 2019. As with all commentary in this blog any authoritative comments or corrections are welcome and will be recorded.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

US University Pathways – Build It And They Will Come?

In 2014 Karen Khemka, a partner with the Parthenon Group, said “The U.S. third-party/outsourced pathway market is less than half the size of the Australian market despite having a higher education system that is 10 times the size.We anticipate that growth will be constrained only by the pace at which private providers can develop the market.” (Inside Higher Education, Bridge or Back Door? 30 April, 2014). With reports recently indicating that two leading providers in the US, Study Group and INTO, are for sale it’s a good moment to see what has happened.

Khemka’s statement came towards the tail end of a period when more than a billion dollars was invested in private pathway providers with the potential for pathway development in the US a strong incentive. But the next billion-dollar question facing potential investors may be whether US pathways were really a field of dreams where you could, to borrow loosely from the film, ‘build it and they will come’. Or has attention to the supply side of the equation ignored the challenges of changing patterns of demand around the world?

To size the growth in capacity in the US I took the NAFSA publication Landscape of Third-Party Pathway Partnerships in the United States (NAFSA, 2017) as a starting point. The publication identified eight providers who were partnering with 45 institutions on 1 April 2016. The criteria was that these partnerships had to be ‘contractual agreements between universities and third-party entities to provide English language courses along with academic credit.’

I revisited each of the third-party entities listed to determine what relationships they have added. It is reasonable to say that the wording of some media statements and the content of web-sites is, either by accident or design, unclear about the exact nature of the relationship or offering. However, Table 1 summarises my understanding of new partnerships that meet the original criteria and notes the dates they were announced.

Table 1 – New US Pathways of Eight Providers Announced 2016 to 2018

* Source: Landscape of Third-Party Pathway Partnerships in the United States (NAFSA, 2017)
**I can find no public announcement of the Shorelight partnership with Utah but it is reflected on the web-site of each organisation

Table 2 shows arrangements listed on the providers’ websites but which I have omitted. I am happy to accept any authoritative corrections in my understanding of the nature of the partnerships or courses provided and to add any partners I have missed. I have not gone beyond the original group of providers although a number of additional providers, such as EC Higher Education, have also developed pathway courses in recent years.

Table 2 – Partnerships listed on provider websites but not meeting criteria

The eight providers have added 21 new partnerships to the 45 shown in the original study – a growth of 47%. This suggests that the private providers have set about growing their businesses in the US with a good deal of vigour and some degree of success. At the time of Khemka’s quote in 2014 Shorelight was a new player but they have moved on to secure the most partnerships just four years later.

That growth in pathway capacity comes at a time when the global balance between supply and demand is in a state of flux and the future is somewhat less certain. The expanding availability of degrees taught in English and the ambitious targets of both traditional recruiting countries and emerging destinations has radically changed the competitive environment. While much of the world is adding rocket fuel to its recruiting engines the US looks to have loaded its unleaded petrol engine with diesel.

In the US a decline in non-degree new enrolments in 2015/16 was followed a year later by both graduate and undergraduate new enrolments declining. And non-degree enrolments continued to fall in 2016/17 which may be a leading edge indicator of further decline. The IEE Fall 2017 International Student Enrollment Hot Topics Survey says ‘Responding institutions report a 6.9 percent decline of international students enrolling for the first time at a U.S. institution, continuing the declines first seen in Fall 2016.’ (IEE, November 2017)

Table 3 – US New International Student Enrollment, 2006/07-2016/17
Source: Institute of International Education (2017). Open Doors Report on International Education Exchange. Retrieved from http://www.iee.org/opendoors

Like many sectors higher education is being obliged to rethink the fundamentals of supply and demand as demographics, competition and disruptive technologies undermine the old certainties. It is a challenging moment to be launching new initiatives and building capacity based on past performance.

NOTES AND CORRECTIONS

This post was updated on 24 September 2017 to include Lynn University as a Study Group partner announced in May 2017. Other related statistics have been updated. At the time of announcement it was billed as ‘is set to open in January’ – presumably 2018. As of the date of this correction the partner is billed on the Study Group site as ‘Launching Soon’.

PATHWAY, DEAD END OR TIME FOR A U-TURN?

August 2018 will be the fifth anniversary of Shorelight’s first partner, Bath Spa University in the UK, being announced with suggestions that the university would ‘see its overseas intake swell to around 2,000 students over the next four years.’. The four years would run from 2015/16 to 2018/19.

It seemed a good moment to look at the pathway market and what happens when relationships don’t work out. This is partly because we may be entering a period where the pathway sector has matured and circumstances make it ripe for realignment. The stakes are high on all sides and the factors are particularly relevant to the UK and US where growth in pathways has been rapid and international student recruitment has been under substantial pressure.

As finances tighten university management is under more scrutiny and is likely to demand more in terms of targets and delivery from partners. The consequences of a failing pathway are becoming increasingly difficult to hide as direct recruitment gets harder. Providers have their own problems with unprecedented global pressures and ubiquitous competition. Some may be reaching a point where optimising their portfolio is more important than simply adding or maintaining capacity.

In the UK a number of institutions have been following the University of Sheffield to see how the switch from one major private provider to another might work. Loyalties are under pressure as university leaders who signed the deal move on and some pathway providers look to change hands after the glut of private equity investment from 2010 to 2014. Pressure to perform has never been greater.

So, when a pathway becomes a dead-end there is every incentive for one or other party to make a U-turn. Or, as Warren Buffett is quoted as saying, “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be a more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” And it doesn’t really matter if it’s a long-term contract (where remedies for under-performance are usually written in) or time for a tender after five years.

IT HASN’T ALWAYS ENDED WELL IN THE PAST
There is, of course, precedent and although closures can be hard to trace I have listed below those that I have uncovered in my research. New partnerships are usually heralded with a fanfare and people smiling as they shake hands on a deal done. Unsurprisingly, a veil is drawn over partnerships that end and those that are public are usually dressed in anodyne media responses.

For both universities and providers that is unfortunate. Considering and addressing failure is a good way of learning and often more informative than the bright, shiny case studies which are so popular as sales tools. In my time with two leading universities with private providers and as COO and CEO with two providers I saw many factors that can make or break a partnership. These are worth sharing.

I make no comment on the reasons for the ending of the relationships noted (but have referenced reports where available). Neither do I claim that this list is exhaustive and I would be interested in any other examples. For organisations contemplating partnerships an open and honest discussion with those who have tried and moved on is probably worth as much as hours of expensive contract development.

Study Group
i) Stirling University (Opened 2007- Closed 2013) Source: QAA

INTO
i) University of East Anglia London (2010-2014) Source: THE) ii) University of Stirling London (Opened 2014 – Closed 2015?) iii) St George’s University (Opened 2012 – closed 2017 Source: St George’s University Annual Report

Oxford International
i) Canterbury Christchurch (Opened 2015 – closed 2017?)

Kaplan
i) University of Utah (Opened 2010 – Closed?) ii)University of Sheffield (Opened 2006 – Closed 2015)

Navitas
i) Western Kentucky University (Opened 2010 – Closed 2016)
ii) Edinburgh Napier (Opened 2011 – due to close 2018)

PRIVATE PATHWAYS MAY NOT BE ACCESSIBLE OR GUARANTEE SUCCESS
UK universities with the greatest decline in overall international enrolments in the past five years often have no pathway partner or are relatively late to the party. Several of the non-aligned universities here have been actively seeking providers but there is, inevitably, caution from providers about taking on institutions that do not have underlying strength.

It remains to be seen whether some of the new partnerships can materially alter the trajectory of underperforming universities. Sector sources suggest that Oxford International and the University of Bedfordshire are parting company and the provider is not currently listing this university on its website.

Table 1 – UK Universities With Greatest Decline In International Enrolments 2012/13 to 2016/17

Source: HESA (enrolments), QAA and University/Company websites

And that brings me full circle to Bath Spa and Shorelight. HESA data (supported by the University’s Annual Report narrative) showed strong growth in international recruitment from 2012/13 to 2014/15. In the first full year of the partnership with Shorelight (2015/16) there was a weakening of growth which was followed by declining international enrolments in 2016/17. There is some way to go for the university to reach the anticipated 2,000 by 2018/19.

Table 2 – Bath Spa University International Enrolments 2012-13 to 2016/17

Source: HESA

Perhaps more troubling is that in December 2017 the THE reported that ‘figures available on (sic) Companies House show that Bath Spa Global – an international pathway college venture set up in 2014 in partnership with US firm Shorelight Education – has lost about £1.4 million in the three years to July 2016, while its parent company Bath Spa U has lost about £736,000 over the same period.’. The 2016/17 Financial Statement from Bath Spa showed international student income and numbers declining year on year and noted that the joint venture partnership, Bath Spa Global, ‘remains fragile’. At the time of writing I can find no mention of Bath Spa University on Shorelight’s web-site and no current reference to Shorelight on the University’s site.