After the champagne has been drunk and lawyers have left the building the respective teams of the pathway provider and the university face ‘operationalising’ the arrangement. 57% of College and University Admissions Directors believe ‘pathways programs will become more important to US higher education in the current environment’ (IHE/Gallup Survey, 2018) so it’s a good moment to consider how that can work. Here are a few thoughts and things to consider based on experience from both sides of the fence.
Most deals are driven by senior management who want to meet strategic needs including more students, revenue and diversity. Work groups, steering boards and workshop sessions are often held in the context of political will from the top down to get a deal done. But once they believe the international recruitment issue is resolved the top team moves on to other priorities.
The failure of many pathways to deliver the expected results can be traced back to this moment because there is no perfect preparation for the day to day engagement between two culturally different organisations. Caution, disorientation and lack of empathy quickly become frustration, blame and mistrust. As Mike Tyson memorably put it, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.
Personal relationships between key decisionmakers can help and one example will serve. One pathway provider wanted to take over all communication with agents, a plan that was being resisted wholeheartedly within the university. It became a symbol of resistance in the international office but a sign of naivety and bloody mindedness by the provider.
Over a couple of Long Island Iced Teas in a Malaysian bar the universities head of international recruitment explained the insecurities, egos and justifications to the provider’s Global Sales Director. After a pause he simply said, “OK. You carry on communicating directly. As long as you promise that we can review in six months and if it isn’t working we try my way.”
It allowed the head of international a ‘victory’ but also the chance to give a clear warning to the internal team that they had to deliver. Having conceded without rancour the provider was able to leverage goodwill on other issues. A year or so later both the main protagonists agreed that it was never that important an issue in the first place.
But personal relationships are the result of hard work, respect, regular engagement and transparency. There will always be decisions to make, changes to consider and strong views to manage. Below are a few things that will almost certainly come up in the first year or so and some possible responses.
- Entry requirements will need reconsidering. Most pathway providers will, at some point, say that recruitment or progression is being hindered by unrealistic academic standards. Every university with a few years of successful recruitment will want to raise grades and then gets surprised when applications drop off.
Be realistic and conduct ongoing research into what is happening in the market – not just in your country but around the world. Too many universities fail to fully understand international equivalencies or the difference between school systems in other countries.
- Cost of acquisition is going up and universities should invest. Competition is tough and commission deals are a complex range of standard, special, emergency and wrapped in deals for marketing, trips and exhibition slots. The suspicion is always that higher costs are simply an excuse to cover poor recruitment planning.
Understand the providers commercial plan for engaging with agents and why they believe it works for your university. Then keep asking how it is going and what evidence exists – term sheets are relatively easy to get from friendly agents. Consider the lifetime value of the student to the university and work with the provider to consider that return holistically.
- Academics should travel to support recruitment. Some academics have been global road warriors with great success and some senior management teams spend weeks on the road at key times. Some try never to leave the university campus because it interferes with their research or they don’t have budget.
In the battle for students an academic title can make a real difference and overtime the winners will have academics who travel regularly. Get used to it and build an internal team that is willing to trot the globe and work hard to recruit. Also, make sure there is a budget to support international travel – time in country is never wasted.
- Admissions times are rarely fast enough. This usually become a running sore and it needs to be dealt with quickly. Standards should be agreed before the deal is signed but even then the provider will want to move the goalposts.
Admissions processes are part of the recruitment arms race and sometimes responses are needed very quickly to optimise enrollments. Work with the provider to make the internal investment case for improved systems, people and processes. Start from the point that admissions is a bridge not a gate – the objective should be to secure every student who has a reasonable chance of completing their academic programme.
- Targets will be missed. In the heat of deal making the pressure to close is intense and people, on both sides, sometimes get greedy and fearful in equal degree. Too many partnerships then work under a fog of misunderstanding and misinformation about target, stretch target, baseline, quotas etc. Even worse can be a lack of realism and prompt feedback about changing market conditions.
Start by presuming that first-year recruitment may be well below target (and that it is not necessarily the providers fault). Make sure university budgets, assuming progressing students, have a reasonable buffer. Do the work to review second year and third year targets as early as possible in the light of experience. Understand what can and will change to make ensuing years better.
- Universities expect the provider to do it all. It can seem reasonable to hand the controls to the ‘experts’ and sit back to watch the students roll in. And there is always a get-out clause or a contractual stick to beat them with if targets are missed.
That is not partnership and universities should want to be involved in anything that involves their reputation. It’s not just about money because students and staff have a stake in the outcomes. University staff know their institution better than any external provider ever will – the more generous and helpful they can be the better for everyone. And providers need to socialise new thinking carefully rather than launching a new plan that is seen as counter-cultural.
- Senior people and champions will leave. A partnership deal is often partly the result of a meeting of minds and ambitions. But it is rare for the original movers and shakers to be as regularly involved after three years. Incomers will have different understandings and motivations and the glow of ‘mutual benefit’ can be tarnished by competing interests.
Providers need to be alert to changing University personnel and work hard at relationships– not just at senior level but by embedding themselves at several levels. Taking time to understand new thinking while establishing a common knowledge of history pays off. Universities need to make sure they are allowing good access and taking time to keep their internal audiences informed.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive and there is plenty more that could be said about building long-term, productive partnerships in student recruitment. Neither partner should expect to have it all their own way but the search for optimal outcomes should be ceaseless. Perhaps the best advice is to have ‘the qualities of an old political fighter’ as Boris Yeltsin once ascribed to a colleague – ”patience and flexibility, always searching for intelligent compromise.
Of course, undergraduate enrolments are not the only source of student income for universities and postgraduates make up the bulk of international enrolments. But it is also difficult to see why the postgraduate enrolment picture would be much of an improvement on that for undergraduates. And an enrolled undergraduate gives a near guarantee of three years income compared to the yearly challenge of recruiting more one year taught Masters students.