Tag: pathways

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

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

Northern Star Sheds Light on International Recruitment

Universities and their mouthpieces might be drawing a collective sigh of relief and thinking that some of the heat has gone out of the discussion around the inequity of International Year One (IYO).  We certainly haven’t seen any of the private providers, the main beneficiaries of this route, stepping forward with authoritative data about this route.  But the Northern Consortium1 UK (NCUK) do give us traces of performance over the past decade or so.

Nothing in the NCUK numbers gives any relief to the core point that IYO is a route which, in many cases, allows international students to start the first year of a degree on without the necessary grades for direct entry.  The scale of the NCUK operation is used to demonstrate that IYO is not a niche activity and so deserves full attention from the Quality Assurance Agency and Department of Education reviews.

Of fundamental interest is the suggestion that NCUK has a long-term annual Progression Analysis that “considers the performance of all NCUK students at member universities and associates”.  This could be the gold standard of analysis reflecting everything from enrolment through attrition to degree outcomes.  At a single stroke NCUK might be able to answer many questions about the efficacy of pathway programmes albeit that its courses are not on campus.

In that respect there appears to have been an NCUK Report “Evidencing Success” from May 2018 launched at the NAFSA:Association of International Educators Conference in Philadelphia, which tracked ten years of NCUK student performance.  The snippet from it in the 2017/18 Annual Report indicates that 80% of NCUK students receive a first- or second-class degree but that IYO students “have a higher-than-average pass rate when progressing to the second year of their degree at university”.  It goes on to say that “over 90% of students meeting or getting higher than the required grades go on to pass their first year” and for “students who have been offered places with lower than the advertised entry requirements, the pass rate remains high at 88%.”

It seems reasonable to suggest that domestic students who miss their offer grade by one level and are rejected might do even better if allowed to start a degree, with extra academic support, on campus alongside direct entrants.  They just don’t get the chance.  Even more regrettable is that the Report is no longer available on its website – makes one wonder2.

The Trail Begins

The NCUK annual report and accounts for 2015/16 show that “International Diploma (Int Diploma-equivalent to 1st year degree level)” was offered as an “established pathway” programme.  It was “renamed as the International Year One” that year.  The report noted an upcoming triennial review in 2016/17 which might imply it had been first introduced in 2013/14 after the closure of post-study work options for international students in 2012.

As a small aside and for those that believe in history being cyclical it is worth noting that the Annual Report also notes NCUK had unconditional offers for 1,205 students.  It was an increase from 1,119 the previous year.  There was, however, a note of caution on eventual enrolment because of “…Nigeria where the economic circumstances are posing challenges for students and their families.  

Getting To Scale

The chart below reflects the data made available in NCUK Annual Reports and Reviews from 2016/17.  Not all of the information is provided for each year but we are able to see the following:

  • Students placed at UK university partners (all years)
  • Students “continuing onto the NCUK International Year One or moving to degree completion programmes at The Sino-British College in Shanghai” (2016/17 to 2018/19)
  • Students admitted to non-partner UK universities or to universities outside the UK (2016/17 to 2018/19)
  • The total number of students progressing to university or continuing on an NCUK qualification (all years)
  • The overall number of students on NCUK courses (2020/21 and 2021/22)

The final number is important in considering the IYO volume because NCUK also offer a percentage breakdown of the numbers on each of International Foundation Year, International Year One (IYO) and Masters Preparation.  For 2020/21 and 2021/22, where those overall enrolments are available, the percentage doing IYO was shown as 16% and 12% respectively.  The maths suggests that 507 and 452 were doing IYO courses in those two years.

Source: NCUK Annual Reports and Reviews

How Big Is International Year One for Private Providers?

A glimpse into the scale of IYO also comes from the only NCUK provider delivering it in the UK – INTO Manchester.  We can know for sure from a Quality Assurance Agency report in 2014 that in that year, of the 822 students, there were 99 on the NCUK “International Diploma” (later renamed International Year One) course.  That’s 12% which seems in keeping, if a little low, with the broader percentages shown by NCUK in later years. 

It is reasonable to add that in the May 2019 QAA Report 77% of students (82 out of 106) at INTO Manchester were reported as being “on a Level 4 International Year One (IYO) course” which might suggest a signficant upward movement in the course.  As pathway providers have come under increasing pressure to perform they have accelerated their provision of the most attractive offers to international students.  Universities who are equally keen to increase international numbers have become complicit in allowing those courses and the progression degrees available.

The other point is that INTO Manchester is not on a university campus so it is reasonable to suggest that the IYO here is more akin to the potential for domestic students who fail to get their grade offers to university to go and do an HNC at a local college.  All that really means is that the attraction of a course on a university campus, often sitting with direct entry first year students and taught by the same lecturers is likely to be immensely more attractive.  It seems reasonable to suggest that the likely IYO percentage in on-campus pathways is much higher.

As noted in a previous blog the growth of IYO and the propensity of universities to allow them has grown rapidly over the years.  More than half the partners of the six main pathway operators have IYO options leading to over 1,000 degree options.  Each partner usually has two to five IYO options.

 UK University PartnersUniversities offering IYOIYO linked degrees
Navitas127430
INTO74102
CEG8581
Kaplan157219
Study Group1411219
Oxford International5*451
Total61381,102

*Only partners where an International Foundation or International Year Zero is offered

A 2023 British Council report into “Pathways and recruitment channels to undergraduate study in the UK” reflected the paucity of information on the number of students coming through pathways into universities3.  However, my own research from public sources indicated that there were likely to be at least 20,000 students in pathways in 2018 and there have been additional partnerships announced since then.  Even staying with 20,000, a count of 12% of them being on international year one reaches 2,400 international students on campuses sitting the first year of an undergraduate degree in a way that is not available to domestic students.

As previously established these students have been accepted on significantly lower grades and often at lower language capability than even direct entrants from their own country.  A domestic student who missed a university offer by one grade could be rejected by that institution and IYO is even offered below contextual grades of domestic students from educationally challenged backgrounds.  It is very difficult to see how that is equitable.

How Do International Year One Student Perform?

The NCUK data is interesting but the gaps in it suggest a number of avenues for further consideration.  Of particular interest is the relative performance of IYO students compared to students progressing from Foundation Courses.  In this respect it’s worth noting that most pathway statistics about degree success tend only to reflect those that made it to the exam so dropout rates are hard to come by.    

A blog in The PIE in May 2018, by Georgina Jones, NCUK Market Development Director, indicates that 80% of NCUK students graduated with a first or second class degree but “around 50%” getting a 2:1 or higher.  On lower admissions criteria she notes, “…students who are admitted with below the published admission criteria, 88% go on to pass their first year, compared to 92% and 95% for those who met or exceed the criteria.”

In the 2018/19 Annual Report NCUK state that 59% of International Foundation Year students graduated with a 1st or 2:1 but that International Year One saw 74% of students achieving a 1st or 2:1.  89% of the International Foundation students secured a 2:2 or better compared to 96% of International Year One students.  There is a hiatus, presumably COVID-related before the story picks up again in the 2021/2 Annual Review, which indicates the 2:1 and above success rates were 69% (International Foundation Year) and 91% (International Year One).

It seems to tell a story that International Year One candidates may be more likely to drop out or fail in the first year but then go on to secure better success rates on completing the degree.  The comparative completion rate for domestic students is around 2.7% which might suggest that if those narrowly missing direct entry were allowed to start year one with additional academic support, more  would go on to finish and achieve academically than international students.

Summary

It is regrettable that Universities UK seems to have wilfully chosen not to explicity include International Year One in the review it has requested from the Quality Assurance Agency.  The existence of Foundation Years, which are often available to domestic students on a comparable basis, has not been questioned by most informed observers of the sector.  Notwithstanding that point, the NCUK figures bring into question the quality of study outcomes for international students who complete Foundations. The 59% with a 1st or 2:1 quoted by NCUK for 2018/19 is a very long way behind the aggregated 76.4% with a 2:1 or first shown by HESA for that year.

The fact remains that IYO is likely to be a successful proposition for commercial providers intent on boosting profitability and universities looking to protect falling international applications.  Equally true is that there is no comparable on-campus, year one of an undergraduate degree option for domestic students who miss their grades so the underlying allegation of privilege for international students is difficult to resist.  It seems that the only motivation for universities is likely to be having higher fee paying international students sitting in seats that could be filled by better qualified domestic students.

NOTES

  1. The Northern Consortium was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee (company registration number 02788226) on 9 February 1993. The Company was registered with the Charity Commission (registration number 1018979) on 23 March 1993. It had ten founder universities and describes itself as “a consortium of leading universities dedicated to giving international students guaranteed* entry to universities worldwide” The star alongside the word “guaranteed” is on the website and probably tells us all we need to know about the types of messaging that prevails.
  2. The summary of NCUK data reflects the incomplete picture across several annual reports. The Evidencing Success Report is still flagged on the website but the link leads to a 404 error page. It would be helpful if the data was available and particularly so if a comprehensive successor document could bring the material up to date.
  3. The British Council report is as polite as it can be about the fact that there are thousands of international students joining UK universities without any consistent way of determining their route to enrolment. This has been a feature of the growth of commercial providers in the international recruitment space. It is also another gap in data which makes the sector vulnerable to politically driven focus on student visas.

Image by Mario Aranda from Pixabay

Selling England by the Pound

The Sunday Times article about differential entry grades for international students1 to Russell Group university degrees sparked the usual defensive response from the UK higher education sector.  There was plenty of obfuscation and claims that the newspaper was guilty of poor journalism but with little engagement about the core claims.  There does, however, seem to be some substance to the claim that universities are working with commercial partners in ways that are not entirely transparent and do not seem equitable in terms of academic and language standards.

Specifically, International Year One (IYO) offerings (generally through private partnerships with universities, accept international students who fail to get the academic or language requirements for direct entry to a university undergraduate programme. If they pass the IYO course they progress to the second year of the degree programme in the university proper which means the IYO is accepted as the first year of the degree. The IYO courses are not open to UK students so they do not have this opportunity if their grades are below the direct entry requirement and so they are disadvantaged.

A Trick of the Tail

The issue, is not well defined by the newspaper, but it seems clear that international students can buy their way directly onto year one of UK university degree course via an International Year One programme operated by a private partner.  The students can do this when they are not academically qualified to enter that programme directly and this opportunity is denied to UK students.  Finding evidence for this is not easy because many International Year One’s advertised are Delphic, coy or deliberately elusive about stating the requirements.

What is consistent is that pathway operators are clear about the intention of International Year One courses:

Kaplan say:

“If you don’t meet the entry requirements to go to a UK university directly, degree preparation courses like an IYO can help you reach the level needed to start a bachelor’s degree….After successfully completing an IYO, you progress straight to the second year of a bachelor’s degree, so you save time and money.”

Study Group International Study Centre – Cardiff University says:

“The International Year One is an intensive programme that leads to year two of an undergraduate degree at Cardiff University. The programme is tailor-made for international students who are not ready to apply direct to the University, but don’t want to delay their studies.”

INTO University of Exeter

“Specifically designed for international students who show academic promise but who do not meet the University’s academic and/or English language requirements for direct entry to Year 1 of an undergraduate degree.”

There seems no doubt from the pathways providers that IYO is a substitute for year one of a three-year undergraduate degree and that those enrolled do not have to have the qualifications published by the university for direct entry to that degree.  It is also true to say that this privilege is not available to UK students.  Indeed, international students who are academically strong enough and have achieved the English language levels to enter direct need not have bothered because their achievements save them neither time or money.

The Sunday Times has representatives of several pathway operators rather proudly noting that it is a “back door”, that “you don’t have to worry too much about how difficult it is” and “..British students don’t have this kind of privilege.”  One might argue that this is just sales talk but if so, it is a reminder that some commercial operators are not operating to the best standards in preserving the UK sector’s much vaunted reputation for integrity and quality.  The operators’ representatives quoted are effectively trashing the brand of the university in question by indicating that this is a privileged, easy and hidden route to their awards. 

Invisible Touch

Having established that the Sunday Times is correct about the nature of the International Year One it’s worth a look at the extent of the differential.  As noted above the university and pathway websites are less than forthcoming, perhaps because they realise that it doesn’t reflect well on quality standards for admissions.  The Sunday Times quotes its sources for a chart showing various anomalies between direct entry and International Year One requirements but they are not publicly accessible.

The Sunday Times also directly quotes pathway representative sfor INTO Exeter saying, “So your son that’s studying A-levels — to get on to the [International Year One] programme it would be two Cs and a D.” They note, “Applying through the Ucas system, the students would need AAB at A-level, she said.”

One publicly available source confirms a similar differential at another INTO partner, Queen’s University Belfast.  The university website indicates that the BSc Economics degree requires ABB at A-level:

Source: Queen’s University Belfast website (28 January, 2024)

The INTO Student Portal shows the progression possibility to the Business Economics BSc from the International Year One in Management and Finance and that the entry requirement for the International Year One in question is DD at A-level:

Source: INTO Student Portal website (28 January, 2024)

Against this background it seems incomprehensible that the Russell Group of Universities has issued a statement trying to obscure and obfuscate the situation. Queen’s offers, through its private partner INTO, an International Year One that allows “progress to Year 2 of a professionally accredited undergraduate degree at Queen’s University Belfast.” It is not available to UK students.

From Genesis to Revelation

The Sunday Times was unwise to bring the terms Foundation Programme and International Year One to the table in the same article.  It seems perfectly reasonable that there should be Foundation level, pre-degree, preparatory programmes for students who do not have the required language level or academic qualifications for direct entry and/or may not have the 13 years’ schooling expected.  There may be different things to be worried about in terms of Foundation programmes and particularly the covert nature of the agreements between university and private partner on the language and academic grades required to pass before degree entry. 

Pathway operators mentioned in the article, INTO University Partnerships, Kaplan, Study Group and Cambridge Education Group (shown as OnCampus), all cut their teeth on Foundation Programmes.  These have come under increasing pressure over time for competitive reasons and as the Chinese students who underpinned the growth of the early 2000s have declined.  The International Year One response utilizes the gap between 5.5IELTS and 6.0IELTS with the former being the lowest level allowed for a visa to start a degree in the UK and the latter being the lowest most universities will accept for direct entry.

Language testing is complex and the gap between 5.0IELTS and 6.0IELTS is suggested to be that between a “modest user” and a “competent user”.  One suspects that the UK visa regulations relating to degree study were simply chosen to reflect the Common European Framework of Reference of Languages (CEFR) which bands IELTS 5.5 to 6.5 together in the B2 category).  In practical terms, however, most universities settled on 6.0IELTS for entry because it was a level which reflected teaching and learning priorities.

Calling All Stations

It is, of course, not only Russell Group universities that do this with International Year One and given the maelstrom in which INTO, Study Group, Kaplan, and CEG found themselves thrown it seemed only fair to have a quick look at Navitas.  Of the big five the Australian giant does not work with any Russell Group universities but has built a decent UK portfolio since 2000, having been the first movers on pathway courses in Australia in the 1990s.

At Anglia Ruskin University, Navitas offer what they call a First Year Pathway (FYP) and say “Upon completion of the first year…you will seamlessly progress to the second year of your chosen degree with the University”.  The language and description is a little meandering but we can be sure agents know what they mean and what commission comes with it.  They are specific that “First Year with ARU College is only available for EU and International Students” and that it is for those who “don’t meet the entry requirements to enter university level study directly.”

Finding the entry criteria for the First Year Pathway is complex (so I would be happy to hear from ARU if I have this wrong and will correct it) but it looks as if the answer is “(EU & International nationals ONLY): 40. UCAS Tariff points at A/AS level.”  This compares to ARU’s standard entry requirement of “96 UCAS tariff point from a minimum of 2 A levels (or equivalent)”.  Basically this is the difference between AA at A-level and DE at A-level.

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

There are times when the UK higher education sector seems as aimless and innocent as a lamb deciding to take a nap on a busy thoroughfare.  There are just too many occasions when it expects to be protected from harm while placing itself in perilous situations where it might be flattened by an oncoming juggernaut.  It has allowed itself to be positioned as venal, arrogant and detached which makes it vulnerable to almost any action the Government of the day wants to take.

The Sunday Times piece comes on top of a number of reports and news items that just suggest universities are not in full control of their brand, their degrees or their finances.  The recent National Audit Office report on private education providers franchised by universities had undertones of fraud and organised crime which were disturbing.  The sense that international recruitment was allowed to spiral out of control with millions being paid to agents and reliance on international students is also strong.

There seems little doubt that all of these factors will play into the Migration Advisory Committee thinking as it reviews the graduate and student visa routes.  Everyone has already seen the commentary from the chair of the Committee concerning low-quality students enrolling more for the option to work post-study than for the education.  One might even think that the timing and placement of the Sunday Times story was intended to ensure that the terms of that Review are as tough and directive as possible.

NOTES

The title of this blog and the sub-headings are all taken from albums by Genesis.  One take on the title “Selling England by the Pound” is that the band did not want to be thought of as “selling out” to America.  But bassist Mike Rutherford has also been reported as saying it “..was partly about increasing commercialization and the sense that something was being lost in England.”  It seems apt given the increasing incursion of private entities into UK higher education.

  1. The Sunday Times appears to have access not only to taped interviews but also to “grade entry requirement documents”.  This blog does not attempt to fully replicate the work or assertions of the newspaper article or to endorse all of its assertions, graphics or quotes. 
  2. I am grateful to Susan Fang for her insight on a specific issue related to this blog. Her insight and prompt response was extremely helpful. Any text or misunderstandings are entirely mine.

Image by Catherine Stockinger from Pixabay

You Must Remember This

One prediction for 2024 is that the ongoing legal dispute between INTO University Partnerships (INTO) and the University of South Florida (USF)1 is likely to provide hours of insight and legal argument.  It appears that the mediation of November 2023 was unsuccessful2 and there is plenty of continuing legal activity in the early part of 2024.  As ever, the summary below is taken from published documents and makes no observation on the arguments made by either side.

The Fundamental Things Apply

Things get moving early in the year with a JAWS hearing on a USF Motion for Summary Judgement on Thursday 4 January3.  INTO had been granted a continuance on a hearing of the Motion back in September 20234 but their next motion to delay the hearing further was denied on 4 December 20235.  The motion seeks a summary judgement against “(…the “INTO Entities”) on Count I, Breach of Contract, and Count VI, Breach of Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing, of the Second Amended Complaint (“SAC”)”.6

A range of legal arguments have been made on both sides and the tone is set early in the most recent submissions.  INTO’s filing suggests that the summary judgement should be denied because USF’s “..allegedly “unambiguous” interpretation of the contracts at issue is still unsupported by the contract language and violates the core tenets of contract law”.7  On the other hand USF’s response to that filing starts with the line, “The INTO Entities’ response ignores basic contract law.”8

In this context, it is interesting for a lay-person to read an article written for the Bar Association of San Francisco which starts, “If you wish to be taken seriously by the court, whether in oral or written argument, never malign or belittle your opponents or their position.”  As previous blogs have noted the various flourishes, acid comments and hyperbole in the written submissions for this case seem to ignore that advice with monotonous regularity.  

That No One Can Deny

Already up and running, with a lot more to come, is the taking of depositions under oath and on the record.  There must be a lot of management time, effort and probably stress (as well as lawyers fees) going into briefing and preparation for these.    

INTO’s lawyers are taking depositions from 14 USF related individuals9 with a start on December 12, 2023 and continuing from January 5 to January 25, 2024.  These include Glenn Besterfield, who was center director for INTO USF when it opened in 2009.  He later became dean for the Office of Admissions and associate vice president for student success at USF before moving on to become Dean of Enrolment Management at the University of North Florida in spring 2023.      

For USF the count runs to 12 INTO related individuals10 with ex-global COO Anmar Kawash and ex-CFO Jon Holmes among them.  The depositions start on January 4 and end with INTO founder Andrew Colin on Wednesday, March 13.

As Time Goes By

It is no surprise that this depth and breadth of activity led to a third extension of case management deadlines on 14 December11.  The Order indicates that discovery closes on March 29, 2024, with expert discovery closing on June 14, 2023 and the “Deadline to have dispositive and Daubert motions12 heard of [Friday], August 23, 2024.”  This seems set for the long haul.

In its Annual Report to July 2022, INTO noted as “contingent liabilities” that it had “provided for legal fees up to 31 July 2022 in relation to this ongoing litigation.  Further legal fees are expected to be incurred in FY23 in respect of this dispute and have been included in forecasts for this period.” It looks like FY24 will have more of the same.

For the University of South Florida their financial audit for the year to July 2022 said, “The University is involved in several pending and threatened legal actions. The range of potential loss from all such claims and actions, as estimated by the University’s legal counsel and management, should not materially affect the University’s financial position.”  To give this some context USF’s operating revenue for the year was $894m.

NOTES

The title and sub-headings of the blog are from “As Time Goes By” made famous by Dooley Wilson in the film Casablanca which was released in 1942. Dooley was a singer and drummer but not a pianist so the tinkling of the ivories was dubbed in. The song was written by Herman Hupfeld who was born nearly 130 years ago on 1 February 1894. Even as time goes by, class is permanent.

  1. The background to the court case between INTO University Partnerships and the University of South Florida has been outlined in several previous blogs. As before, 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.
  2. Filing # 188238925 E-Filed 12/18/2023 01:13:33 PM (point 4. of Exhibit 25 – Affidavit of Shawn J. Rabin)
  3. Filing # 187809851 E-Filed 12/11/2023 08:28:02 PM
  4. 09/14/2023 11:07:38 AM Electronically Filed: Hillsborough County/13th Judicial Circuit
  5. 12/04/2023 12:13:13 PM Electronically Filed: Hillsborough County/13th Judicial Circuit
  6. Filing # 179813559 E-Filed 08/16/2023 03:28:09 PM)
  7. Filing # 188161134 E-Filed 12/15/2023 06:08:23 PM
  8. Filing # 188693985 E-Filed 12/27/2023 11:55:52 AM  
  9. Filing # 186997655 E-Filed 11/29/2023 02:20:27 PM
  10. Filing # 186594368 E-Filed 11/21/2023 12:05:10 PM
  11. 12/14/2023 10:05:23 AM Electronically Filed: Hillsborough County/13th Judicial Circuit
  12. A Daubert motion is a specific type of motion in limine13.  It is raised before or during trial, to exclude the presentation of unqualified evidence to the jury.  Daubert motion is used to exclude the testimony of an expert witness does not possess the requisite level of expertise or used questionable methods to obtain data.  It is the outcome of 1993 Supreme Court case, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., 509 U.S. 579 (U.S. 1993).
  13. Always interesting when a footnote needs a footnote but the term was new to me.  In limine is a Latin term meaning “on/at the threshold”.  In this context it relates to a pretrial motion requesting that certain evidence be found inadmissible.

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Study Group Hokey Pokey

In recent months there has been triumphant messaging on LinkedIn from Shorelight’s Tom Dretler claiming that the business “brought more international students to the US” than anybody else in fall 2023.  It was queried by Andrew Colin of INTO University Partnerships with the riposte “Are you sure?” to which Tom posted a thumbs up sign.  Probably better than the middle finger emoji but as neither of them would be able to definitively prove the point we are probably none the wiser.

What is clear is that Shorelight, having overtaken INTO for pathway partnerships within three years of springing into existence, has also significantly outstripped the erstwhile US market leader in terms of direct recruitment options.  But as the US comes back to life after a tough and long pandemic it is interesting to watch the maneuvering of other players.  There is no doubt that there are probably hundreds of US universities who would like to get on the gravy train of southeast Asia enrollment opportunities so we should expect a glut of wannabe global student recruitment options emerging.

Enter Study Group, whose approach to the US has been akin to a slightly the worse for wear dad doing the Hokey Pokey1 on new year’s eve.  The gyrations of the past few years are a painful reminder that a business that could once claim to be among the world leaders as a private provider of recruitment services to universities seems to be struggling for identity, a sense of direction and worst of all hard cash.  Having abdicated to Navitas in Australia by selling all of its holdings and now facing a UK Tory Government lining up post-graduate work as the Christmas sacrifice to right-wing rebellion, it seems to have turned attention across the Atlantic.

The announcement of three new direct recruitment partners may look like a decisive step but you have to wonder whether this represents a strategic drive for market share or a gambler’s final throw.  A quick look at the recent international student enrollment record and a few facts about each university might suggest that we are at the stage of the evening where subdued lighting and sufficient refreshment has brought lonely souls together.  Maybe inspiration on the partnerships has been drawn from the mighty Bruce Springsteen’s suggestion that “Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night, You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re alright.”2

Shake It All About

Between 2019 and 2021 Study Group ended relationships with seven US universities and, as recently reported, has seen Baylor University depart the fold in 2023.  Some of the relationships had been in place as long ago as 2008 but there was a burst of activity with new partners in 2013 and 2014 after the purchase of Study Group from Champ Private Equity by Providence Equity Partners for a reported £388.3m in 2010.  Of the four partners added at that point only one remains.

By 2017 Study Group was on the block again.  It seem entirely possible that the addition of seven new partners between 2016 and 2018 was driven as much by the desire to show momentum as long-term strategic planning.  Four of the seven are no longer partners.  Current major backer Ardian bought the business in 2019 without the terms of trade being made public but at a point when the decline in US international pathway businesses was already evident.

Timing is everything and nobody could have predicted the pandemic to come, so Ardian have been obliged to put up with some even more difficult times.  Between February 2021 and March 2023 they tipped a further £77m into the business according to Study Group’s Annual Report and Financial Statements. Despite that in the year ended 2022 Study Group posted a decline in new student enrollments of 22% from 8,050 to 6,244 year on year and lost a top university brand, Lancaster University, to INTO in 2023.

A more detailed review of the underlying issues at long-term partner James Madison University shows the problems that Study Group may still have in holding on to its pathway business.  In that context it seems possible that new partner universities, whatever their merits, will be welcome if Ardian are considering how best to extract themselves from an investment which seems unlikely to have satisfied expectations, in a sector that is in significant turmoil.  Getting out of Australia just as the tide seems to be turning looked a curious decision but the growing risks in the UK must be leaving many senior people with sleepless nights. 

Maybe this is the moment that a major (and often discussed) reunion bringing Andrew Colin’s two creations – Study Group and INTO University Partnerships – together might provide the critical mass and overhead savings to compete effectively while balancing risk around the globe.  The merits of merging two businesses that have struggled to make headway in recent years, and where one is embroiled in legal dispute with a major US university, might be questionable.  Perhaps CEG should be thrown in the mix to complete a trifecta.            

Shake It All About

The three new partners are University of Nebraska – Omaha, CSU San Marcos and Townson University in Maryland.  Study Group is putting its brand in at points north, east and west with a group of institutions that might be described as eclectic.  One thing that connects them looks to be slow progress in recovering international student numbers quickly after the pandemic.

University of Nebraska – Omaha positions itself as “Nebraska’s Metropolitan University”.. “dedicated to the city and state in our name.”   It’s international enrollment since 2019 has followed a broad pattern of decline in undergraduate numbers but an encouraging uptick in graduate students since 2020.  One would guess that the relatively low tuition fee of $22,358 and value for money housing costs could also be an attraction.

On the other hand, Nebraska might be a tough sell as a location and it’s worth noting that the University of Nebraska – Lincoln is the dominant international student recruiter in the state.  It claims the “lowest tuition in the Big Ten” at $28,792 and looks in a good position to dominate competitively.      

Warren Buffett, the “Sage” of Omaha, is among the more famous residents of Nebraska.  With a presidential election in 2024 and possible uncertainties that might bring it is difficult not to think of his dictum, “Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”  Given Study Group’s US record that might be worth thinking about.  

Source: University of Nebraska – Omaha Office of Institutional Effectiveness

Those who think of California as an ideal location for international student recruitment need to remember that the performance of the big players is not always replicable.  For every University of Southern California (15,729 international students in 2022 according to Open Doors) there is a, um, CSU San Marcos (CSUSM).  The international new student enrollment at CSUSM was never particularly high and appears to have been in serious decline for four years with little joy even in graduate recruitment.

Tuition and fees at CSUSM look reasonable at $18,160 for UG rising to c$22,000 for most Graduate degress but room and board costs are less so.

Source: CSU San Marcos Office of Institutional Planning and Analysis

One the east coast Towson University has a new President in Mark Ginsberg and was embroiled in a controversy earlier this year for allegedly “creating programs that already exist at historically Black colleges and universities.”  It later withdrew the program.  It bills itself as a “…nationally recognized leader in inclusive excellence.”

With undergraduate fees of around $28,000 a year it is the most expensive of the three but presumably the location offers some relief from the sunshine of southern California and the seasonal extremes of Nebraska.  It’s non-resident student fall enrollment has been lackluster for several years with graduate numbers creeping up only slowly.

Source: Towson University Office of Institutional Research  

You Put Your Whole Self In

Good strategy requires long-term commitment, intense focus and a relentless drive to implement effectively even as circumstances change.  If this is Study Group’s new direction they will need to move very quickly to build their portfolio and execute enrollment against some entrenched opposition.  It may be, however, that the sale of the Australian portfolio and the saturation of the UK market has reduced options to the point where it is the only game left to play.

NOTES

  1. The Hokey Pokey is an Americanization of the Hokey Cokey which reached peak popularity in the UK in the 1940s.  The peak of popularity in the US is claimed to be the 1950s. Perhaps Study Group intend to revitalize it…
  2. The line is from what is, in my view, The Boss’s greatest song “Thunder Road”. Written in 1975 it was the first song on breakthrough album Born to Run. Apparently he played it as first song when he first played in the UK in November 1975.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Closing Open Doors

This is probably the final blog relating to Open Doors data on 2022 enrollment of international students for US universities and the more recent data published by individual universities for fall 2023. That makes it a bit longer than usual and it includes a small diversion into some recent commentary about online being the new international!

Beavering Away Or Bellying Up?

The yearly posting of detailed information from Oregon State University (OSU) offers timely data, good detail and easy accessibility.  Universities in the UK and around the world would do well to follow the model if they want to engage more effectively with the public.  It is difficult to have a serious discussion about trends or for politicians to make good decisions when information is more than two years out of date.

All that said, this year’s data reflects the continuing struggles of some well-regarded US universities and their pathway partners to recover after the pandemic.  The detailed numbers underline the perils of over-reliance on a single market and the reality that the US bounceback outlined by Open Doors fall 2022 data is patchy.  As noted in a previous blog, the data gives clarity on why pathway partner INTO University Partnerships (INTO) didn’t mention the university in its press release suggesting a “..huge surge in international student enrollment for its US institutional partners..”.

The total of enrolled UG and graduate students shows that OSU is making no progress in recovering the volume of international students lost since the pandemic.  There has been a small uptick in graduate students (+68) but undergraduate numbers continue to plummet with a decline of 16% year on year (-192).  While the year-on-year decline is slowing, OSU does not appear to have benefited in 2022 or from the reported increase in international enrollments indicated by the Open Doors Fall 2023 Snapshot.   

Source: Oregon State University Officer of Institutional Research

NB: INTO OSU students, excluding those on Academic English courses, are included in these totals

The driving factor for the decline is that the university was heavily reliant on Chinese students and has been unable to significantly grow numbers from India or elsewhere.  In its other historically stronger recruitment markets OSU is losing ground with Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Taiwan all in decline over four years.  What seems difficult to explain, given OSU’s quality and the supposed recruiting power of its private partner, is that the Open Doors state by state detail suggests two other Oregon universities – Portland State University and the University of Oregon – seem to have stabilized their overall number of international students in 2023 more effectively than OSU.  

Source: Oregon State University Officer of Institutional Research

It is also clear that the pathway proposition (INTO OSU) offered by INTO is not providing much momentum with a down year in 2022 and a net increase of just seven students in 2023.  Without a substantial shift in recruiting market dynamics it is difficult to see a path or a way (sic) to significant growth in the future.

Source: Oregon State University Officer of Institutional Research

The decline in INTO OSU’s numbers reflects even more clearly the past reliance on China (and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia).  Taiwan now contributes more volume to the pathway than China.  The aphorism “you can’t buck the market” is often attributed to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher but it’s a warning to operators around the world that changing to meet shifting market conditions is critical to long-term success.

Source: Oregon State University Officer of Institutional Research

Is Online The New International?

An interesting rider to all this is the recent blog by Glenda Morgan in Phil Hill’s On EdTech Newsletter.  She asks the question, “Is Online the New International” and noted that “..by 2021 eCampus was the largest source of OSU’s tuition revenue.”  The suggestion in the newsletter is that US university focus on international student recruitment might be drifting, in the context of continuing pressure on budgets at state level, towards online recruitment.

The article contains a quote from Rajika Bhandari summarizing that, “Most students coming from India are at the graduate level. This has always been the case and likely will be for the foreseeable future.  Therefore, just from a recruitment and revenue perspective, they are never going to have the same impact on an institution’s bottom line as the Chinese undergraduate students.”  I first speculated on this in a UK context in January 2020 and have made the point on a number of occasions that the impact on traditional pathways was likely to be even greater.

The article leads to an interesting conclusion about “..the costs involved in physical campuses.” Anyone who has worked at a university sees how the emotional ties to the institution’s location are almost as powerful as the existence of labs, lecture theatres and student housing. One suspects it will take many years (or possibly a few university insolvencies) to change that mindset.

It’s thought-provoking stuff and may mean that some universities are already accepting the constraints on globally mobile international students as a revenue source.  This would leave some of the commercial operators who have no track record in either delivering or recruiting to online courses with a bleak future.  There may be a particular danger where academic English courses are concerned as James Madison University noted in its consideration of failure by Study Group to recruit to an Intensive English Language program.

Do Private Providers Make A Difference?

In October 2020 a Report by NAFSA, APLU and INTO made the claim that “Institutions with third-party pathway partnerships were 1.73x more likely to experience international enrollment growth…”.  The data analysed was across two historical periods – 2007-2015 and 2015-2018 – and there was a lot of weighty statistical explanation.  Against that background it is interesting to apply a simple comparison to see what has happened in recent years.

The graph below takes the Open Doors state by state enrollment numbers for three of INTO’s “present” comprehensive university partners (with pathways) and places them alongside those of three “past” partners who no longer have pathways with INTO.  The time series avoids the peak pandemic affected years of 2021 and 2022 but show prior performance and how the bounceback might be happening.  Washington State University (WSU) and Colorado State University (CSU) ceased being pathway partners in 2021 and 2022 respectively but are direct recruitment partners.  The University of South Florida claims to have terminated the pathway partnership in April 2022 but a legal battle is ongoing and is the subject of several earlier blogs.

This data appears to show that past partners WSU and CSU had declining numbers before the breakup and that being direct recruitment part has shown no benefit in terms of growing numbers post pandemic.  On the other hand, the split and no ongoing direct recruitment relationship does not seem to have stopped USF from driving its international enrollments significantly higher in 2023.

The “present” comprehensive partners shown all have pathways but allow INTO to recruit directly to certain university programs.  There is a satisfying upward curve to the University of Alabama – Birmingham (UAB) curve and George Mason University (GMU) also appears to have bounced back strongly in 2023.  It is all the more perplexing that Oregon State University has been in decline since 2017 and looks to be the worst performer among the six.

It would seem fair to say from this data that a comprehensive partnership with a pathway is no guarantee of growing enrollments, that being a direct recruitment only partner appears to have relatively little impact on performance and that it is entirely possible for a university to drive enrollment outside of any relationship with a pathway/direct recruitment partner. While there was little doubt that INTO helped OSU make rapid progress in international recruitment for several years until about 2016 a lot has happened since then.

None of this is to suggest that the Report by NAFSA, APLU and INTO was incorrect in its analysis.  However, it is reasonable to believe that the changing international student source markets, growth in competition and other factors should make institutions negotiate hard if they are looking at these relationships.  Building a business or a growth strategy on data that is five years old and past glories is probably not a good idea.  

Source: Open Doors State Facts and Figures

It is also increasingly clear that pathways are unlikely to be the answer, with further evidence from UAB showing that the INTO pathway courses have struggled to recover after the pandemic and that Academic English is showing almost no signs of revival at all.  This reflects the situation at GMU reported in a previous blog and the minor increase of seven students for OSU shown in the graphs above.  This pathway picture appears to be repeated across Study Group and Shorelight pathway partners.

 Source: University of Alabama at Birmingham Office of Institutional Effectiveness   

NOTES

As alway, the analysis in this blog reflects a genuine attempt to interpret and consider the implications of data from public sources. It is recognized that there may be minor underlying differences in the way the data is collected. The source of the data is given so that readers may make their own judgements and if an authoritative source makes contact the author will make appropriate amendments.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

A Study Of A Stumble

It is difficult to understand why publications claiming an international audience continue to quote the headline numbers from the annual Open Doors release.  The inclusion of OPT numbers would only be relevant in comparison to, say, the UK if the number of students on post-study work visas was added.  The real headline is that US enrollment of undergraduate and postgraduate students in 2022/23 was up 12.4% year on year but still nearly 33,000 lower than 2017/18.

At a more granular level, the new international undergraduate intake of 95,681 appears to be well below the 2017/18 comparator of 108,539 and so the reduced accumulator factor of undergraduates will slow overall growth in future years.  On the global competitiveness scale it also, for example, looks well below the UK’s 2021/22 international intake of “first year, all undergraduate” recorded by HESA.  While the counting of the numbers is always a fine art and some differences may apply, it seems difficult to agree that the US enrollment of international students is “soaring” against the main competitors but we will have a better direct comparator when the UK’s data for 2022/23 comes out early next year.

The Fall 2023 Snapshot on International Student Enrollment doesn’t seem to give real cause for breaking out the champagne.  The 8% headline figure shown includes both non-degree and OPT students which leaves the undergraduate and graduate groups growing by 3% and 7% respectively.  If those percentages turn out to be accurate we can expect next year’s Open Doors to show an aggregated total growth for UG and Masters of about 5.3% year on year to 2022/23 and still at a total lower than 2018/19.

Study Group Stumble

The Open Doors release comes as we continue to see fallout in the pathway sectors in the US with the recent news that Study Group’s relationship with Baylor University has come to an end.  The winding down of Study Group’s US portfolio over several years with what looks like the haphazard or, more kindly, opportunistic addition of new partners1 may also indicate a strategic vacuum as the organization comes under pressure to perform.  It’s longest-term partner appears to be James Madison University (JMU) which came on board in 2009 but recent signs there are not encouraging.

Notes from the JMU Provost’s Committee on International Student Recruitment suggest that the relationship may not be producing the results required and that Study Group’s recruitment power may be under question.  We learn in the 2022-2023 End-of-Year Report from May 2023 that JMU had sought other support and contracted, in 2021/22 with EduCo to “increase direct admit students”. The Report also noted, ominously, that “we see no productivity from EduCo”.  At the time of writing JMU does not appear on the EduCo list of “highly collaborative working partnerships with universities”.

A procurement process was in place to appoint University Study to support international recruitment.  This would appear to have been successful as JMU does appear, alongside around 200 other US universities and colleges, on the University Study list of study destinations.  It may be a little early for them to have had an impact on the international student enrollment presented below.

Mind Your Language

Another action noted in the JMU Report is the introduction of an Intensive English Program (IEP) through Study Group requiring “…Federal permission in 2021 to modify our I-17..”.2  The resulting online and inperson IEP was offered for the first time in Summer 2022 but the report notes, “No students participated in summer 2022 and it looks like no students will participate in summer 2023.”  Perhaps interestingly the May 2022 Report of the group had indicated “we think because there are lower-cost options, e.g., DuoLingo, for students needing to enhance language proficiency.” 

Discussion to explore international online programs with Study Group had been put on hold. The overall tone looks less than encouraging and the suggestion that students might be finding alternatives to intensive English programs is worth considering as an aside. The Open Doors Report on Intensive English Programs in the US suggests that student weeks rebounded a little in 2022 but that average weeks per student fell to historic lows of 10.4 compared to 13.8 in 2020 and 15 in 2015. There seems limited opportunity in that market.

The Numbers Count But So Does The Mix

Three graphs from JMU capture the shifting winds of international recruitment in the US.  Since 2015 total US non-resident students have fallen by 334 students (56.3%).    

Source: JMU Planning, Analytics & Institutional Research

Graduate student numbers have grown in successive years with a rise of 126.7% on a relatively modest base of 45 to reach 102.

 Source: JMU Planning, Analytics & Institutional Research

More painful is the decline in international undergraduate students by 71.4% to 167 from a high of 548.  The proposed undergraduate tuition, insurance and student services fee for 2024/25 is $35,600 per year which implies a loss of over $13m in yearly revenue compared to 2015 intake volumes.  More troubling is that the recent trend is still downwards despite suggestions of increasing applications in the Committee Reports.

 Source: JMU Planning, Analytics & Institutional Research

Who’s That Knocking At The Door?

It does look as if the recruitment environment for the US has irrevocably changed with the shift in international student recruitment markets. Over and above that the revitalization of Australia, the uncertainty (but continuing lure for now of guaranteed post study work) in the UK and Canada’s bait (however tenuous) of citizenship have made major competitor destinations even more accessible and attractive. Adding into the picture the global desire of countries from Germany and France to South Korea and Japan to increase their recruitment and retention of the international student market and it would take a brave individual to suggest the attraction of the US is wholly secure.

NOTES

  1. Study Group ended relationships with universities/colleges Merrimack, Roosevelt, Widener, Vermont, City College NY, Oglethorpe, Lynne and now Baylor between 2019 and 2023. They gained De Paul and Hartford as CEG closed its US operations in 2019 and added Florida Atlantic University (as a direct recruitment partner) in 2021. At the time of writing they appear to have four direct recruitment partners and three pathway partners in the US.
  2. The I-17 is the petition (an application) filed with the DHS that, when approved, allows the enrollment of non immigrant students (with gratitude to Thomas P. FitzGibbon III for correcting my earlier definition).

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay