Tag: pathway closures

INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay 

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

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

More US Pathway Cutbacks

Keeping pace of the developing pathway scene among the private providers in the US requires constant attention.  Study Group has taken action within its US portfolio and no longer recruits for four brands featured on the company’s website a few months ago.  After this year’s closure of CEG’s US centers and EC Higher Education’s withdrawal from the market it’s further evidence of the pressure on international student recruitment.

The closed Study Group pathways are Roosevelt, Widener and Merrimack while West Virginia was a direct recruitment option.  The Merrimack relationship extended back over a decade, Widener and Roosevelt were opened in 2012/13.  West Virginia came online in January 2018 with recruitment commencing in fall 2018.

These changes leave Study Group with four regionally-ranked and seven nationally-ranked university partners according to USNWR 2020 listings. Among the nationally-ranked, two were taken over from EC while only three sit above 200: Baylor (79), Vermont (121) and DePaul (125).  Three of the four remaining regionally ranked universities, Oglethorpe, Western Washington and Lynn were signed in 2017, so there may be contractual impediments to early action.

US News Ranking 2020 of Study Group US Partnerships (closed institution in red)

The Study Group closures mean that, as far as I can track from public information, the company has launched 14 university partnerships in the US of which five have now been closed in the past two years.  Between CEG and Study Group more than 10% of US private-pathway provider centers have closed in the past two years.  These tended to be smaller operations in terms of student numbers, but it reflects the stress that the sector is under.       

As global competition grows, the potential for private pathway providers to recruit successfully to less prestigious and/or lower ranked institutions seems increasingly questionable and even bigger names have seen enrolments declining.  It is difficult to see that the increasing view of Admissions Directors from Masters/Baccalaureate institutions that pathways ‘will become more important’ is well founded.   Neither is it obvious that the billion dollar private equity fuelled dash to build pathway capacity in the US is going to pay off in the foreseeable future.

With UK international recruitment prospects resurgent under a new Post-Study Work regime, the growing quality of emerging options around the world and the continuing assertiveness of Canada, Australia and Germany, it’s probably time for a rethink.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Changing Perception of US Pathways

It’s been the quietest year for nearly a decade in terms of announcements about new pathway partnerships in the US, and the 2019 Inside Higher Education (IHE) survey of College and University Admissions Officers suggests a shift in perceptions by institutions.  The closure of several centers in the past year and disappointing enrollments at a number of institutions have given plenty of reason to be cautious.  But faith persists in some sectors.

In the Survey only 12% of public doctoral institutions strongly agreed that “Pathway programs will become more important to US higher education in the current environment.” In the 2018 survey that percentage was 22%.  Among Private Non/Profit Doctoral/Masters institutions, the percentage of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing to the statement fell from 60% to 51%.

Table 1 – Pathway Programmes Importance to US Higher Education (IHE, 2018)

Table 2 – Pathway Programmes Importance to US Higher Education (IHE, 2019)

However, there has been an almost Damascene conversion among Public Master’s/Baccalaureate institutions, where 28% now strongly agree in pathways’ growing importance, compared to 15% last year.  This is mirrored in the Private Non-profit Baccalaureate section where 56% agree or strongly agree compared to 33% last year.  While, at an aggregate level the survey shows declining enthusiasm for pathways it is clear that they still hold an allure for some institutions.

The real question for the new enthusiasts will be whether the private pathway providers have much appetite for non-doctoral institutions.  The portfolios of the ‘big two’, Shorelight and INTO, contain universities offering doctorates some have quite limited offerings.  Study Group have a mixed bag of institutions and recently some at non-degree level in Canada, and Navitas has some non-doctoral universities on the roster.

Potential for new, high-profile partners may become even more limited as stronger US institutions become increasingly comfortable with their capacity and capability to manage enrollments without resorting to a third party.  While, to date pathway providers have been the more likely party to terminate partnerships empowered or disappointed universities might begin to question underperforming relationships or decide they can do better alone.  The scene is set for more turbulence as people come to terms with the new global mobility conditions.       

Furthermore, the UK’s move to institute a two-year Post Study Work (PSW) visa for students enrolled from 2020 may bring further pressure and undermine the US’s position as a favored destination for international students.  After a 33% surge in Chinese undergraduate applications to the UK for 2019/20, the UK Home Office reported that the number of Indian students choosing to study in the UK increased 42% from June 2018 to June 2019.  It is likely that following the PSW announcement, India’s numbers will continue to grow rapidly for the 2020 intake.

Alongside that, the US is heading for an election year where the future of global relationships, student visas and existing post-study options could be part of the political debate.  Just as the financial markets dislike turbulence it is difficult to see why a student would choose to invest in an uncertain future.  The relatively safe havens and emerging, quality options around the world could seem increasingly attractive. 

For Study Group and Navitas any difficulties in recruitment to the US will be mitigated by increasing momentum behind their considerable portfolios in other parts of the world.  INTO’s mix is more finely balanced but its recent focus has been on the US and it has just lost the University of Gloucestershire as a UK pathway partner.  Shorelight is wholly US based and will face the full force of global headwinds. 

It certainly seems likely that pressure on sales teams, cost of acquisition and other “promotional” tactics will increase.  Local difficulties, such as those Shorelight are facing in Kuwait, will also impact on the ability to recruit sufficient students for existing partners let alone new ones.  Life is unlikely to get any easier in the short term and may get a lot worse, which might seem to mitigate against continuing expansion, particularly with sub-optimal partners.     

However, ‘doubling down’ is a popular phrase in the US and has come to mean ‘to strengthen one’s commitment to a particular strategy or course of action, typically one that is potentially risky.’  The IHE survey suggests that at least one sector of the market is increasingly interested if pathway operators have the appetite.  But in terms of recruitment it might be worth remembering that, as the UK’s ‘Iron Lady’, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in 1997, ”you can’t buck the market.”

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay