Tag: universities

It’s Only Just Out of Reach*

It’s always fun to write something that challenges current orthodoxy.  It is not about being right all the time but stimulating debate brings the potential for creative solutions and better solutions for students and society.  There is also the interesting spectacle of people defending the status quo and thinking nothing can or will ever change.

Recently, Louise Nicol and I co-authored a piece for University World News which exhorted the UK to ‘make hay’ while the sun of a benevolent international student environment shone down.  In the face of a beleaguered Australia, an overwhelmed Canada and a United States where every month brings a new twist or turn, it’s time to seize the day.  Or, as the UK Prime Minister could possibly say the UK needs to prenez le grip et donne nous the students.

The suggestion in the article was that the UK should not be thinking about being second in the world for international student recruitment but, specifically, “how and where can we be first?”.   Illustrating the potential was the Education International Cooperation Education Group survey which found, for the third consecutive year, that the UK achieved favoured status – something previously held by the United States.   It also noted that this year UG applications from India were up 30%, with the growth firming up as later data showing placed applicants up by the same percentage.

This led the authors to suggest that the UK Government target of 600,000 international students by 2030 should be revised to 750,000.   It’s a big number but UCL added over 7,000 international students in the four years to 2019/20 and there are more than 150 degree awarding institutions in the UK. A further 240 colleges in the UK provide complete courses leading to recognized UK degrees so the additional students could be spread even further.

Around the Corner

Even if it sounds a stretch target there are a range of data points to suggest what might be possible if there was the will.  If the proportion of international students studying for degrees in the UK was 33% of the total enrolled (UCL is at 53%) there would have been 844,000 of them in 2019/20.  A 44% increase on the 556,625 international students in UK universities in 2019/20 (including EU students), growth which Australia managed between 2016 and 2019, would take the number to 802,540.  All of this is without counting the 432,000 students doing UK degrees outside the country which means that nearly 1 million students around the globe are already studying for awards from UK institutions. 

It was, however, suggested by one respondent that “…the reality is the UK can never be #1. One of many reasons – institutional capacity”.  Fans of Maradona, Berra and Smith might agree more with Yoda’s wisdom that “size matters not” and I wondered what it would really take for the UK to overhaul the US as the leading international student recruiter.  There are several ways of measuring it but it’s surprising how close a race it could be.

First thing to say is that the Open Doors press release and headline figures for US international student enrollment embellishes the actuality.  You can remove 223,539 Optional Practical Training (OPT) that are included (because study is generally prohibited or incidental) and 58,201 non-degree entries from the 2019/20 total of 1,075,496.  That leaves 793,756 UG and Graduate students which is below the numbers noted in the ambitious growth UK scenario noted above.

Next point is that the US has been in a period of decline and Open Doors gives a number of 225,239 new UG and Graduate enrollments in 2019/20.  HESA indicates that the UK enrolled 319,825 first year non-UK students that year, with 255,710 being non-EU so it was ahead on new degree entry international students.  Continuing to close the gap at the rate of 30,000 a year would see the UK ahead of the US within eight years.

It seems reasonable to suggest that the engine of US growth for the past ten years has been Chinese students but that the coming ten years will bring different motivations and constraints.  A four-year undergraduate and two-year postgraduate system may be less attractive for international students who are anxious to get their degree and move on to work in the country of study.  In this respect the UK length of degree study has an advantage and its recently activated right to two years post study work is more accessible than the US options.    

India is likely to become the most important indicator as China’s demographics and attitudes change.  It’s early days but in the year to the end of June 2021 the UK issued 62,500 student visas for India – a rise of around 30 per cent on the previous year while a comparative figure for the US seems to be about 55,000.  These numbers suggest that the UK was ahead by 12.8% – a winning margin that would increase the world long jump to over 10 meters from its current standard of under 9 meters.

Maybe Just by Holding Still

It is true that the US has over 4,000 degree granting institutions so its capacity is extensive.  But it is more expensive; studying often takes longer; post study work is complex; there is a reputation in recent years for being less than welcoming and the lingering uncertainty of a different political viewpoint dominating in a few years.  The recent climate and the prospects were considered so poor that at least 18 US pathway operations closed in the past three years despite being operated by experienced companies that recruit over 15,000 international students a year in the UK. 

The scale of the decline in the US pathway operations has been brutal and is no better illustrated than INTO’s troubles at Oregon State University where an enrollment of 1,496 in Fall 2014 fell to 809 in 2019/20.  The US universities that have made significant progress in international recruitment and maintained momentum during the difficult recent years have invested over the long term to build infrastructure and expertise.  But, there seems no real evidence of a widespread, concerted attempt by the majority of US universities to do what is necessary to materially increase the number of international students they attract.

Meanwhile, the UK is rubbing its hands with glee at the recent news that the THRIVE Act could dissuade colleges from using international agents.  The Center for China and Globalization (CCG) has noted worsening China/USA relations impacting student choices and there seems little reason for agents, already under pressure from the rise of aggregators, to give preference to a country that has always been lukewarm to their role in student recruitment. The M Square Media (MSM) agent survey published in early 2021 showed the depth of the problem that has to be overcome. 

None of this is to say that the US, with its breadth and depth of quality institutions, cannot find its way back towards a position of substantial growth in the international student arena and remain number one for total volume.  But having capacity and wanting the cash from tuition fees is unlikely to be enough to compete effectively against countries that are hungry for success, offer easy routes to post-study work, make citizenship a realistic goal, and which are not likely to fundamentally alter the rules of the game with every change of Government.  Neither does it mean that the UK can’t aspire to dominate markets where its quality, variety, value, visa policies and record of engagement with local agents, schools and universities makes it a safer bet. 

NOTES

* All headings and sub-headings are derived from the song “Something’s Coming” from the irresistible West Side Story which celebrates the 60th anniversary of its release on film this year.  For my money Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim created the finest musical ever committed to film.  (Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. © 1956, 1957 Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim. Copyright renewed.  Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC, Publisher.)  

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay 

Is a new Dark Age beckoning for higher education take up?

Louise Nicol and Alan Preece  First published in University World News, 29 September 2021

Many believe that going to university is a rite of passage and that young people and their parents will always make sacrifices for it.

For years the Grand Tour of Europe was similarly considered an educational and social milestone for young, privileged men to complete their education, but its attraction waned.

When technology made rail and sea travel accessible, Thomas Cook aggregated tourists on package holidays and rich young men lost their interest in neo-classical culture: the Grand Tour gave way to the “Cook’s Tour”.

Enabling technology, applicant aggregation and a growing dissatisfaction with educational outcomes are with us today. There is no reason that one generation’s rite of passage won’t become another’s dead-end junction and some warning signs are already showing.

It is possible to speculate on how the educational enlightenment of the past 70 years could mark the beginnings of a new dark age.

It’s just not worth it

A February 2021 House of Commons Briefing in the UK showed part-time entrants to university had collapsed from 470,000 in 2009/10 to 235,000 in 2019/20. The number of “white working-class boys” going to university continued to fall in 2021, with acceptances down 9.9% since 2014.

Across the Atlantic in the United States, higher education enrolment has fallen by an average of 1.67% per year since 2010.

Rumblings of discontent have been tracked in the US, with the Pew Research Center and Gallup finding declining confidence in higher education since 2015.

Some parts of the political spectrum are markedly more sceptical than others, but even where there is support, it has fallen in recent years.

A survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center and Association of American Colleges and Universities found that 29% of US adults did not think a college degree was “worth it”.

A OnePoll survey of UK postgraduates in 2021 found 46% did not think their university education was worth the money and over 30% did not need a degree to do their current job.

The Harris Poll in 2020 found 60% of student loan debtors in the US said their degree was not worth the student loan debt they had taken on. Whether it is the general public or the graduating class – scepticism is evident and increasing.

Government views are also shifting with the UK removing the long term ambition of 50% of young people participating in higher education and calling it an “absurd mantra”.

When an education minister says that university education is not what the individual or country needs, is “low value” and carries an “inbuilt snobbishness” it is difficult to see why the public should keep the faith.

All at a time when young people are graduating into a post-pandemic world which has brought new uncertainty to their first steps on the career ladder.

Zombie Gen Z to the Alpha Dawn

Generational shifts take time and if the average age of a new parent is around 28, we are seeing the last of Generation X’s (1965 to 1980) children going to higher education.

Those parents, along with the media and successive governments, told Gen Z (1997 to 2012) that a degree was the route to a career and a better life. Maybe that is why Gen Z didn’t question the aspirational mindset society encouraged when university was effectively free in the UK and you could even get a grant to cover living costs.

But the last of the Millennials, Gen Y (1981 to 1996), are finding out that traditional graduate industries are embracing the digital revolution and squeezing out many of the first steps on the career ladder. Economic indicators point to young people today being worse off than their parents, unable to get into the housing market and reliant on the bank of mum and dad until well into their twenties. There is no reason to believe that the situation is going to improve any time soon.

Gen A (born from 2012), the children of Millennials, will be at undergraduate entry age around 2030, just as the demographic boom of the 2020s starts to go against UK universities.

A disenchanted Gen Y might be regretting the return on their own education investment and could advise Gen A to consider one of the many different paths available to them.

The bank of grandad and grandma (Gen X) will not stretch far enough to have much influence as health costs rise, life expectancy increases and the Asian century shifts the world’s economic centre of gravity.

Government is unlikely to help, as unpaid student debt in the UK is already £160 billion and forecast to grow to £560bn by 2050.

The Higher Education Policy Institute or HEPI has already suggested that students should start paying back their loans at a lower income threshold, which looks like both a cost saving to Government and an acceptance that graduate earnings are going nowhere fast.

Alternatively, the Augar recommendations could be adopted in full and domestic tuition fees slashed from £9,000 to £7,500, but even if this does come to pass Gen A could face the prospect of graduating with a large amount of student debt, that they start paying off earlier, at interest rates higher than today’s historic lows.

Right now, in the UK you seem to have more chance of driving a lorry than you do of obtaining a place on a graduate training scheme.

Much has been written about the “Future of Work” becoming more skilled by 2030, probably sooner. Whilst there is much evidence pointing towards a demand for graduate skills as a result of the fourth industrial revolution, what’s to say you cannot be trained on the job by your employer whilst earning, as opposed to taking three or four years out of the workforce to go to university?

Logistics companies, for instance, are likely to be willing to train people on the job and do a deal with Coursera or the next generation of online operators to upskill young people.

With the chance of learning a skill, having their education paid for and earning three years’ salary, the attraction of university life may be less evident to Gen A, particularly when they have grown up being told that employers see online degrees as the equal of in-person study.

Perceptions of degrees as the only gateway to a world of opportunity and a comfortable income may also come under increasing pressure. Research by the Higher Education Statistics Agency or HESA and Warwick University has suggested that in the UK, on average, graduates born in 1970 (GenX) earned 19% more than non-graduates by the age of 26, compared to graduates born in 1990 (GenY) who only earned 11% more.

The UK’s Office for National Statistics or ONS says that 36.6% of all graduates but 45.4% of recent graduates (a figure that rises to 59% in Liverpool) are working in non-graduate jobs while, in the US, it is estimated that 33.8% of all graduates are in jobs not requiring a degree.

28 years later

It may seem fanciful to look even further forward, towards what generational changes may have occurred by 2045, but it is already 24 years since Tony Blair’s pledge to make university a reality for 50% of young people in the UK.

Society seemed in favour of the idea at the time, but by 2010 the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), whose 750 employer members recruited 30,000 graduates a year, was already calling for the target to be scrapped because it devalued degrees.

The current Government’s rejection of the target may be a watershed moment that reverses the trend for the coming 25 years.

It all leads to an intriguing and troubling proposition. A major indicator that someone will go to university is that at least one of their parents did, but if parents begin to counsel their children against attending we will be heading into totally new territory and a possible downward spiral.

University-educated parents actively briefing their children against going to university would be a cultural disruptor that makes full-time, in-person university attendance the exception rather than the norm.

Louise Nicol is founder of Asia Careers Group SDN BHD. Alan Preece is an expert in global education, business transformation and operational management and runs the blogging site View from a Bridge.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

There is more to student recruitment than edtechs offer

Louise Nicol and Alan Preece  First published in University World News 04 August 2021

We probably all remember the big reveal in The Wizard of Oz (recently in the news again) when Oscar Zoroaster is revealed as a conman who had used clever props and magic tricks to maintain his place as Supreme Ruler of the Kingdom of Oz. Universities might consider this when they hear industry pundits eulogising the power of the aggregators and the Emerald City of big data. The smartest of them know that there is a place for brains, heart and courage in finding alternative solutions to meet challenging international student recruitment targets during a global pandemic.

It’s no surprise that, to date, due to lockdowns and border closures, universities have felt powerless to make an impact on international recruitment. Stuck in their back bedrooms while working from home, aggregators must have seemed like the answer to their prayers for a quick technology fix to match their new-found obsession with Zoom. This thinking was supported by the suggestion that they were low cost, simplified agent relationships and could improve student accessibility.The glamour of eye-watering valuations and bold investments by venture capital and private equity cash looking to ride the latest edtech wave seems very persuasive.

There is slick marketing, even slicker websites and the ubiquitous use of the word algorithm to confirm that artificial intelligence and machine learning can solve all problems. Anyone blinded by the hype could be easily persuaded to “follow the yellow brick road” and commit the lion’s share of next year’s recruitment budget to the Wizard.

Blinded by algorithms

But, before budgets are committed and valuable university brands handed over, it is worth taking a step back, looking behind the curtain and considering the future in a more measured way. Dorothy trusted the Wizard and did battle with a Wicked Witch on his behalf before finding he wasn’t all he appeared to be. He wasn’t evil, but it turned out that her first impressions were wrong and her true friends were really the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion.

In the case of the aggregators, those that have joined early are likely to see the best returns on their initial investment because the aggregators’ client lists remain manageable and the choices for students limited. As more universities pile in, convinced by the returns of those that have gone before them, those that have brands with limited reach or are less able to pay for placement and influence are likely to sink to the bottom. As aggregators gain clients, their revenues will grow while returns for institutions are likely to diminish over time.

Relying on an algorithm to place you in front of a student is all well and good but, just as has become accepted with Google searches, it only works out if you are on page one and preferably between one and three on the list. Showing how manipulated this can be can be seen in recent research on Studyportals where a search gave 839 courses on their ‘Our Picks’ list, with the first 10 being the University of Lincoln and the top 253 shown as ‘Featured’, indicating that they had paid to be near the top. It is debatable whether this method works in the interests of the student or the paying university.

That’s why, despite all the hype around aggregators, 46% of universities polled in a recent UK Education Advisory Service survey have not taken the plunge. They will be looking at the options and ways in which they can manage their risk while optimising any benefits that the new technology can bring. We return to Dorothy on her journey through Oz to suggest some valuable allies that might form part of a comprehensive strategy.

The Scarecrow is a model for having the brains to develop strategic thinking. Any university putting together their international recruitment strategy for next year should consider this checklist:

• Aggregators. Negotiate hard for the best deal. It is all about market share and brand for them, so they want you more than you think.
• Review direct recruitment. If you get it right, it can dramatically lower your cost of sale by building strategic relationships with international schools in target markets. Look beyond ‘Tier One’ schools which may have high numbers of expatriates who may want home fee status to ‘Tier Two’ schools to attract more international students.
• Think aggressively about meaningful engagement. Nobody needs another talk on “filling out a UCAS form” or “writing a personal statement”. Involve academic colleagues, set challenges and remember to personalise ongoing contact with schools and individual students after a first presentation.
• Get a handle on social media, networkers and influencers. Just one example is to join prospective international student groups in your target markets and search for your university name and respond to the various comments and requests for advice and guidance.
• Look to your TNE partners. They can be a route for progression, but may also add value in other ways. Examples include careers advice supporting students returning to the region or using existing employer relationships to create new revenue streams for Continuing Professional Development and-or applied research.
• Put international employability at the heart of your messaging. It is the reason students, and their parents, invest in international education. Ensure your institution has access to top graduate destinations by key international markets. Get robust, representative data to demonstrate graduate outcomes and be able to tell your ‘employability story’. Whether it’s through direct recruitment, pathways, aggregators or agents, a student’s decision will directly be influenced by their ability to get a good job and be able to progress in their career.

The Tin Man reminds us to have a heart. Do not be lured by the aggregators into abandoning pre-existing and new relationships with agents, institutions, schools and key overseas stakeholders. As the list of those on aggregator sites become longer, it is the personal touch that will end up paying dividends when it comes to recruitment.

Visiting agents’ offices, international schools and speaking to prospective students will never be a waste of time, and that personal touch is likely to be a far stronger incentive for a student to apply than their scrolling through a long list of possible study options.

Where the Lion comes in is in emphasising that universities need courage to make strategic decisions that they will stick with.

That means seeing past the possible short-term bump in recruitment that aggregators will claim and remaining focused on a game plan that both mitigates risk and builds flexible, scalable and meaningful engagement with students now and in the future. Aggregators may be a part of that strategy, but they are unlikely to be the only option or always the best solution.

Some will survive and others will fall by the wayside like the Wicked Witches of the East and the West. They will not own the student recruitment ecosystem unless universities let them.

Louise Nicol is founder of Asia Careers Group SDN BHD, and Alan Preece is an expert in global education, business transformation and operational management and runs the blogging site View from a Bridge.

Image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay 

GOLDEN YEARS OR ASHES TO ASHES

Seeing the THE claiming that their Awards are the ‘Oscars of the education sector’ reminded me that the the first documented use of the term, by columnist Sidney Skolsky in 1934, came because he said, “The snobbery of that particular Academy Award annoyed me.”  We are well into the Awards season and having already had The PIEoneer Awards with 124 Finalists across 19 categories the THE Awards may not be trying hard enough with only 123 finalists across 20 categories*.  Several other organizations are getting on the Awards bandwagon, but life is short so the focus here is on the late-November THE celebration which has switched from the 5-star Grosvenor to the 4-star Hilton London Metropole.

I TURNED MYSELF TO FACE ME**

It would be fun to have Ricky Gervais turn his gimlet eye on the people at the tables and adopt his very best Golden Globes approach, “this is the last time I’m hosting these awards so I don’t care anymore. I’m joking, I never did…..Let’s go out with a bang. Let’s have a laugh at your expense, shall we?”  The THE Awards are certainly the subject of a great deal of chest-beating beforehand at even being listed but maybe as Ed Sheeran’s recently commented about such nights, “The room is filled with resentment….it’s just lots of people wanting other people to fail.”  Unlike the Oscars, almost all the finalists decide to put themselves forward as the most worthy so perhaps, in a spirit of post-pandemic collaboration, it would be better to have a new rule that you can only nominate another person or institution. 

The THE would have been better to liken these awards to the Emmys*** where the main award winner this year was a vaguely comedic institution desperately trying to regain its place alongside the giants of the game.   In a strange twist of fate, of the several nominees for the 2021 THE University of the Year, none is higher ranked in this year’s THE World Rankings than it was last year or in 2015. Success in league table rankings seems less important to the judges than the institutions themselves.

For those who are grasping for the popular culture reference, the Amazon Prime series “Ted Lasso” was a serial winner at this weekend’s Emmys****.  It features a football manager who knows nothing about the game, a foul mouthed, past his prime “lord of darkness” feared by all and an owner who set out to deliberately ruin the club.  These might be considered good metaphors for the worst of institutional management, the vagaries of research leadership and the government’s attitude to higher education. 

I would personally welcome the Lasso, Kent and Welton Awards but if the theme has to stay with education and real people it would have been good for the THE to call them “Ronnies” after Lord Ron Dearing, whose name was attached to the THE Lifetime Achievement Award until 2018.  Anyone fortunate enough to win twice could start their speech by saying something about having Two Ronnies.*****  It would be a treat to see what could be made of the Awards being a load of ‘bill ‘ooks’.   

Unfortunately, Lord Ron’s name disappeared from the Award in 2019 and as far as I know it wasn’t because someone had won it three times and been allowed to keep it as per Brazil and the Jules Rimet Trophy******.  Perhaps his seminal report of 1997 was no longer seen as quite modern enough but 2019 was also the year private equity group Inflexion Pvt. Equity Partners LLP acquired the THE.  I don’t see much chance of the Sir Philip Augar Awards any time soon but with Gavin Williamson being touted for a knighthood anything must be possible.

THE STREAM OF WARM IMPERMANENCE

The loss of the Dearing Award is one sign that the THE Awards might be a mirror for the changing face of UK higher education.  For example, 2019 should probably be known as the Year of the Technocrats (or Revenge of the Registry) with a whole new slew of awards for Excellence in Registry Services, Outstanding Estates Strategy, Outstanding Financial Performance, Outstanding Library Team, Outstanding Strategic Planning Team and Outstanding Marketing/Communications Team. 

Registry, Financial Performance and Strategic Planning were dropped the following year but perhaps they were just too busy to buy enough tables at the dinner or already got their invitations from anxious to please private sector providers. 2019 was also the year of 23 Award categories which was up from the 18 in 2011.  Inflation of 28% in categories but at least another five tables of ten to be sold to “nominated” universities considering attending the glittering occasion.

Outstanding Support for Early Career Researchers was lost in 2015 which seems a shame because they seem to get a pretty raw deal and their seniors don’t feel recognized for the mentoring they do.  The Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year was the successor category from 2016 but it doesn’t seem to capture the notion that the whole institution should be involved in this fundamental aspect of university business. 

Colleagues who know about these things will also be nodding wisely at the fact that there is no place specifically for Careers Advice and Guidance Departments in the Awards.  It’s a neglected backwater for most universities and Tribal research suggests institutions spend ten times as much on international recruitment as helping students get job.  So the Awards recognize where the main non-academic funding goes which is big shiny new buildings (Estates), slick, shiny new enrollment campaigns (MarComms) and the very expensive headache that is an academic library.

Sponsors, as you would expect, also tend to put their money where the best return might be.  It is surely no coincidence that Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community has had only one year sponsored out of the last ten whereas the NCEE seems to own the Outstanding Entrepreneurial University category.  Elsevier seems to have switched horses having backed the Art, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of the Year 2017 and 2018 but plumping for the STEM equivalent since 2019.

There is something depressingly obvious about the categories and the impression they give of a sector stuck in a time warp.  The Widening Participation or Outreach Initiative of the Year has not been won by a Russell Group university since Sheffield in 2014 and the Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community category this year can only claim a partial nominee in the University of Nottingham’s partnership with Nottingham Trent.  The Group talks a lot about its intentions and efforts that it seems surprising that members are not quite breaking through.

The Outstanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Award was launched last year with six nominees coming from universities ranked below 42nd in the UK by the THE’s own world rankings.  It’s good to see St Andrews flying the flag for the both the Russell Group and globally ranked UK top ten institutions this year but it’s another area where the “best universities” don’t seem to be establishing their credentials.

HOW THE OTHERS MUST SEE THE FAKER

Like the THE’s Impact ratings, the Awards ceremony tends to reward institutions and people who take time to promote themselves and who may see it as the key to obtaining more resources or students. Some entrants may also see them as a gateway to a new job, a new honour or a way of cementing a reputation as a guru of the sector.  The ceremonies themselves make money, big service providers can entertain their prospective and current clients, and the event manager sucks the goodwill into its bank of favours for future profitable enterprises.

Nothing wrong with any of that in a commercial sense and many industries do it.  But if higher education wants to stop being considered the same as accounting, retailing and restaurants it may want to consider how it responds to the lure of a commercial company offering small baubles of fame.  There’s plenty of scope for Universities UK or another industry-led body to run a sector wide Awards ceremony and I suspect that the THE would find it difficult not to become a sponsor and report on the winners.  Just a thought.  

Notes

* Apologies if there is any miscount here but like Ricky Gervais – I really don’t care😊  The THE says “seventy-eight institutions and teams” but I think it’s nice to count the individual finalists as well.

**Sharp eyed readers of a certain generation and sensibility will have recognized the sub-titles as lines from David Bowie’s wonderful song Changes which features on Hunky Dory – one of the few flawless albums.  The title is of course two Bowie song titles.

*** The Emmys are awarded by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.  The name Emmy derives from Immy, a nickname for image orthicon, a camera tube used in television.  More interestingly the acronym of the awarding organization’s name is SATAN backward.

**** I recognize that The Crown is considered the winner of the main awards but a series about palace intrigue, privilege, insensitivity to public opinion and personal spite feels too close to the mark for comfort. The fabrication of history and sensationalising of complex issues involving real people also does not recommend it to me.

***** For readers outside the UK “The Two Ronnies was a comedy sketch show featuring Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker that ran in the UK from 1971 to 1987.  One of the most beloved sketches (and the link here) featured a hardware store where a customer sought items and was misunderstood by the shop owner.

******  The Jules Rimet Trophy was the original prize for winning the FIFA World Cup. Originally called “Victory”, but generally known simply as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde, it was renamed in 1946 to honour the FIFA President Jules Rimet. Famously, the trophy was stolen during the World Cup in the UK in 1966 but was found seven days later by a black and white mongrel dog named Pickles. The Brazilian team won the tournament for the third time in 1970, allowing them to keep the real trophy in perpetuity, as had been stipulated by Jules Rimet in 1930.  The trophy was stolen in 1983 and never recovered.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

RANK HYPOCRISY

Shock and horror as the THE World Top Ten Universities 2022 are revealed as….exactly the same ten names as 2021.  A small shuffle of the deck saw Stanford drop from second to fourth but The Stanford Daily seemed more concerned with the question Who Is Elizabeth Holmes, The Stanford Dropout Now on Trial?  As someone probably once said – if you’re truly world class you don’t say it and you certainly don’t need the THE to tell you.

LinkedIn was full of university marketing chiefs and even some academics, who should probably know better, trumpeting their performance.  Newcastle University’s marketers expressed pride that it had moved into the top 150 but it had simply returned to 146th – exactly the position it occupied in the 2011-12 rankings. There were plenty of other institutions with short term memories talking without any regard for whether their ranking meant real, sustainable or even meaningful progress.

It’s a merry go round that was called out recently by Vincenzo Raimo who noted that universities tend to celebrate advances but complain about the distortion and negative impact of the rankings. When leading academics do call into questions the methodology, as David Price, UCL’s Vice Provost of Research did recently, they get snide responses from the promoter in chief.  Perhaps the THE is becoming The Borg and thinks that “resistance is futile”.   

What the THE has certainly seen is that university compliance and hypocrisy has enabled them to exploit the “trusted rankings” as a platform for THE Student.   To the mix they add a spiel about “hand-picked partners” who will help student “make the right choices”.  A cynic might suggest that the many privately financed partners on the list are much more likely to ensure a result which is in their own interests. 

But It May Be Worse Than That

It would seem harmless to simply accept that the World Rankings have become a university version of the Sunday Times Rich List where envious glances are occasionally followed by spectacular falls from grace.  Maybe The Stanford Daily is offering a metaphor by focusing on a cautionary tale of hubris and deceit just as these rankings were published.  But the THE doesn’t appear to be in any doubt about the game it is playing.

They say that “even if you do not meet the inclusion criteria, you will be entitled to a university profile on our website that will increase your visibility to our audience of academics, prospective students and their parents.”  It is a university version from the “Toxic Sludge is Good for You” playbook which Publisher’s Weekly called “a cautionary reminder that much of the consumer and political world is created by for-hire mouthpieces in expensive neckties.”.  Even the most limited institution, regardless of reputation or quality, can benefit from reflected glory as part of this commercial enterprise.

The THE sells the benefits of the rankings very hard and articulates them as global exposure with tens of millions of page views, data trusted by governments and universities, and a vital resource for students when they are making decisions about where to study. The point about ‘trusted by governments’ is a big part of the sales patter including a recent Tweet which highlighted the EU Commission’s, Gerard de Graaf saying,  “We know that rankings do more to direct universities’ attention, policy makers’ attention, students’ attention than any other policy tool… “. 

Surprising then that in 2014, the very same year of de Graaf’s comments, the European Commission gave €2m funding to establish U-Multirank explicitly, “to avoid simplistic league tables which can result in misleading comparisons between institutions of very different types”.  Dr. Simon Marginson, Professor of International Higher Education, UCL Institute of Education, University College, London called U-Multirank, “a vital corrective to the “football” league mentality that has crept into higher education…”.  The point is that the EU did not see ‘rankings’ as the answer to anyone’s problems or need for better quality information.

Gaming The System

The tweet also claims that de Graaf “urged@timeshighered to develop rankings on impact” which they framed around the UN’s SDGs and first published in 2019.  To be included in the overall ranking an institution has to self-select and submit data on SDG 17 and at least three other SDGs of its choice.  It’s difficult to see, however, that an institution can’t selectively manage its performance in three SDGs and SDG 17 while being a mediocre or even poor actor in the other thirteen.

The University of Manchester’s top spot in the 2021 Impact Rankings suggests how partial this process can be and why students looking for insights might do well to look elsewhere.  An alternative might be the  People and Planet UK-based student network that has been running an environmental and ethical performance league tables since 2007.  The organisation also does useful things like training and mentoring young people, campaigning and challenging vested interests locally and internationally.

Its 2019 League Table gave the University of Manchester a low-ranking in the Upper Second-Class Honours bracket and 59th in the UK.  To be totally fair it also notes that the University has fully completed a commitment to divest from all fossil fuels.  It is arguable that the THE rankings give too much opportunity for institutions to game the system and, as a Professor of History in a 5* department once said to me, “we are all here because we are good at passing tests”.          

If the principle is that the THE Impact Rankings are a “vital resource” for students wanting to make a choice they might do well to consider giving a broader context.  Students travel internationally to share in a cultural experience and could easily find that selecting a university based on the Impact rankings leads them to places where the off-campus setting is a little less in tune with their sensibilities.  It’s not necessarily that the universities aren’t trying hard but there are very real limits to their power.

The country with the largest representation in the Impact rankings is Russia with 75 institutions which seems counter-intuitive given that the country is only 46 of 165 in the UN’s own SDG rankings.  In early 2020 Transparency International ranked the country 137th out of 180 in its Corruption Perceptions Index at a point when the Russian Academy of Sciences was reported as finding “widespread plagiarism in Russian academic journals, with more than 850 articles rescinded from 263 journals after an initial review.”  More concerning is the repression, sexual harassment and intimidation of students and faculty outlined by the Russian student magazine DOXA.

At 27 in the Impact rankings is Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University in Saudi Arabia – a country down at 98 in the UN rankings.  The university scores well on SDG 10 for reducing inequalities at a point when the UN does not appear to have information available to give the country a score.  Meanwhile Finland, which is top of the UN league table, doesn’t have a university ranked until the 201-300 bracket by the THE.

When Gaming Becomes Cheating

League table manipulation is a theme that Malcolm Gladwell picked up in his Revisionist History podcast series.  Calling the U.S. News & World Report college rankings an “abomination” might sound harsh but his analysis points to the way the rankings can distort perceptions of higher education.  The edition on Project Dillard focuses on the specifics of how a historically black university in New Orleans is disadvantaged “even though, on a number of very objective measures, it does an outstanding job of educating the students who go there.”

His argument is that, fundamentally, the league table gives no encouragement for small and rich colleges to use their advantaged position to serve larger numbers of students.  The corollary is that Dillard University could leap sixty places up the US News rankings by cutting 75% of its students.  All of this is before the various scandals of colleges manipulating data to improve their place in the US News rankings.

In this vein the THE Impact rankings have a corrections page where any errors in data collection and changes to rank as a result are listed.  The notable thing about this is that every case where incorrect or incomplete data was submitted the university’s ranking has either not changed or they have gone up the table.  It’s a relatively small sample but one might imagine that institutions are keen to, legitimately, correct the data when they feel they have done poorly but less likely to review data when rankings have gone well.    

Earlier this year a report by the Center for Studies in Higher Education produced an analysis suggesting the QS World Rankings had a conflict of interest due to its consulting business.  QS responded that the consulting contract with the university stipulated that there was no link to rankings and that they had policies to ensure staff were “free from personal or commercial bias”. Readers will make up their own minds but as league tables become increasingly commercially exploited the risks becomes greater.

If Resistance Is Futile…Consider Changing the Rules

Nobody should kid themself that league tables have not had a material impact on decision making within universities.  Hours, days and weeks of planning and strategy have been exhausted on understanding the levers that can be pulled to move institutions up various rankings and this effort would not be made unless it fed into actions.  The available tools are relatively blunt but increasing the number of ‘good degrees’ always looked manipulable and it is arguable that the 90% growth in first class degrees awarded in the UK between 2010/11 and 2018/19 is one visible sign of that pressure.

But Forbes tells us some interesting things about “no win scenarios and ethical leadership” and draws on Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru scenario as its exemplar.  Famously, Captain James T. Kirk overcame the no-win training scenario by reprogramming the simulation and has led a fierce debate over whether he cheated or was simply creative.  Author Janet D. Stemwedel cuts through this by suggesting “it’s important to be able to deal with trying to live up to our ethical obligations while knowing full well that circumstances and our own limitation cannot guarantee we’ll succeed.”

University league tables won’t go away and universities may feel obliged to play the game because of the political, social and recruitment leverage they might offer.  However, academics do not have to join in by offering their opinions about other universities and institutions do not need to manipulate their decision making with one eye on the league table impact.  There could also be more concerted pushback against the dumbing down that emphasizes overall rankings and oases of excellence in a sea of mediocrity or even corruption. If the aim is to help students faced with the biggest decision of their lives it’s worth the effort.

Notes

The complexity of league table methodology is the stuff of legend but it does not really aid understanding. The commentary on the THE approach to the overall SDG table reflects my understanding of the paragraph – A university’s final score in the overall table is calculated by combining its score in SDG 17 with its top three scores out of the remaining 16 SDGs. SDG 17 accounts for 22 per cent of the overall score, while the other SDGs each carry a weight of 26 per cent. This means that different universities are scored based on a different set of SDGs, depending on their focus.

As always I am happy to review authoritative comment which may aid understanding and will reflect this in an update if necessary.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Fatal Four Way Match for Universities?

Economist John Maynard is famous for saying, “In the long run we are all dead”, but he also wrote, “there will be no harm in making mild preparations for our destiny”.  Universities might consider this as they struggle to encourage international students to overlook the near-term uncertainties of the pandemic in 2021. The real winners will be those readying for 2022 when all four of the major receiving Western countries are likely to be competing from a position of strength.

There is no point in the last twenty years when the US, UK, Canada and Australia have, at the same time, been growing aggressively or had in-country conditions enabling them to promote themselves effectively.  While globally mobile student numbers have grown there has always been a country operating with at least one hand tied behind its back.  It seems likely that this is about to change, which is going to bring unusual pressures to bear on recruitment efforts.   

If there is significant headway on vaccination rollouts, the pandemic recedes and internal country politics align it will be time for a revitalized UK, a desperate Australia, a confident Canada and a Biden-powered USA to do battle.  Those familiar with World Wrestling Entertainment’s Fatal Four Way match up may think it could be a contest that makes equally interesting viewing.  For international students it will mean a smorgasbord of opportunity, offers and opening doors.        

Overview and Trends

Data from individual countries are not standardized but the graph below focuses only on students identified as bachelors, postgraduate taught and doctoral for each country.  This eliminates the language only, non-degree and/or OPT registered elements that provide wider fluctuation and distortion between countries.  For example, significant elements of the recent Canadian international student growth are concentrated outside degree level programs.

The data indicates that when the US has done well Australia and the UK have been steady or in decline.  It also demonstrates the increasing place of Canada in degree level awards with every likelihood that the explosive growth at lower levels will feed through over time.

A starker way of visualising the pattern is to consider each country’s percentage share of the aggregate enrollements of all four and show how it has risen or declined year on year.  Changes in the US share correlate reasonably well to the shifts in the fortunes of other countries and particularly the UK and Australia.  The Canadian share is relatively stable but is likely to have an increased impact as the volume increases.

From 2002/03 to 2011/12 the US consistently lost market share against the other countries.  The burst of growth, which underpinned the expansion of investment in pathways in the US came from 2011/12 to 2015/16 when its share of the market grew.  The subsequent decline of US enrollments from 2016/17 has correlated with accelerated growth from Canada and Australia and latterly, the UK.  

Country by country factors broadly match the numbers and suggest that it was not competition alone that caused the ebbs and flows.  US growth in the 2000s was sluggish as the country proceeded with caution after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  The UK stagnated after removal of post-study work visas in 2012.  Australian visa restrictions, from 2009 were followed by significant benevolent changes from 2013 onwards.  And Canada’s focus on growth came with particular emphasis from the 2011 Economic Action Plan and 2014-2019 International Education Strategy although its relative share was undermined by the US growth between 2011/12 and 2015/16.

The Global Picture

At a global level, the OECD measure of globally mobile students pursuing tertiary education gives an indicator of the competitive threats and opportunities that exist.   What seems most clear is that the trend has been for the non-OECD countries to increase their share of the market over time.  In 2018 they had 30% of the market while in 2000 they had only 24%, which suggests power is gradually moving away from the traditional receiving countries.

The big four will also suffer from the success of countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Russia taking an increasing share of OECD country growth.  A by-product of that may be the way that pathways – which have come to be a dominant part of the UK and Australian landscape – have to respond to the new era.  Pathways operations in Europe have become commonplace and Brexit may be another factor that accelerates their growth. 

Number of international or foreign students enrolled in OECD and non-OECD countries

Source: Education at a Glance 2020.  Figure B6.1. 

With growth likely to come from more price sensitive markets it may also be worth universities taking account of the relative changes in costs that may be coming around the corner.  It is interesting to watch foreign exchange predictions and there seems to be a view that the US dollar may weaken over the coming 18 months and increase the competitiveness of its services.  Alongside this there are voices suggesting strengthening of the UK pound, the National Bank of Canada expects the Canadian Dollar to appreciate, and there seems to be plenty of confidence in the future value of the Australian Dollar.

Conclusions

It seems reasonable to conclude that over the past two decades each of the main four recruiting countries has, from time to time, benefited because one of the main competitors has struggled to create the conditions for growth.  But no country with a thriving higher education section is going to willingly shut its doors forever and all the signs are that universities will need growth to offset economic conditions and government cutbacks in their home country or state. While it is easy to feel smart when things are going well; it is wiser to be smart about what is happening to the competitive set and what you can do to prepare for changing conditions. 

2021 remains uncertain but there is every reason to believe that 2022 will see greater competition across the globe.  In a head-to-head match, where the quality of the universities, visa availability and the possibility of post-study work become more equal, it will be interesting to see who wins.  The US has all the tools to win and its fall from being the most favored destination owes as much to its decrease in popularity as the increase in desire to go elsewhere.  

The time to prepare is now, and there is nothing to stop a smart US university giving real consideration to establishing a market-priced offering to students from the most rapidly growing source markets.  Establishing a high-profile recruitment platform in early 2021 would take advantage of the market sentiment towards the Biden administration supported by the gradual re-opening of visa offices.  Carpe diem may summarize 2021 but audentes fortuna iuvat should be on everyone’s lips for 2022.

Footnote

Data on international enrollments are not consistent across the main recruiting countries.  The data used takes sources where it appears to be possible to secure an aggregate number for total enrollments of international students undertaking a bachelors, postgraduate taught or doctoral degree.  The sources for each country are itemised below and any insights or corrections to my assumptions are welcome.  The data are also subject to other anomalies which make comparison a subjective business.  The main points to make in that regard are:

i) Australian data appears on a calendar year.  Placing this against sources reporting academic years requires making a judgement about which year compares to which but is not material in the context of the main line of argument in this blog.

ii) UK data used are from the latest HESA release (27 January 2021) for the most recent five years and use historical data for the years before.  In building the spreadsheets I noticed that the numbers in the most recent release differ slightly from those in prior releases.  These differences are not significant enough to make a difference to the main argument.

iii) EU student data has been omitted from the UK data because the economic incentive to recruit them is not the same as international students who can be charged higher fees than home students.

iv) The timing of data collection is likely to be an increasingly important factor as universities increase their number of entry points in the year.  This is likely to be a contributing factor to the HESA data noted above. 

v) Sources

– US data from IIE Open Doors download of historical data and analysis of Undergraduate (Bachelors and Associate), and Graduate only:

– UK data from Higher Education Statistics Authority.  Latest release for most recent five years but historical data before that time.  Non-European Union, all levels (UG and PG) and all modes of study:

– Australia data from Department of Education, Skills and Employment, Higher Education Statistics, uCUBE, Enrolments Overseas, Sum of Postgraduate and Bachelors, 2001-2019 (removed enabling and non-award):

– Canada data from Statistics Canada, Postsecondary enrolments, by registration status, institution type, status of student in Canada and gender. Selected University,   International Students, all fields of study, 2000/2001 to 2018/19.  Sum of International Standard Classification of Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral (and equivalents) for Canada:

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

US PATHWAY SECTOR FACES DOUBLE WHAMMY UNDER ENROLLMENT PRESSURE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Post Study Work May Change UK University Enrolment Growth Patterns

The BBC’s claim that ‘UK universities see boom in Chinese students’ shows a lack of subtlety in understanding the dynamics of growth at different institutions.  The latest HESA data available at individual university level shows that just seven universities took 51% of the 16,990 student growth in Chinese enrolments between 2014/15 and 2017/18. But there are intriguing signs that the incoming surge of Indian students might bring a new dynamic to the market.

While China still dominates, the latest HESA data (for 2018/19 entrants) shows that Indian ‘first year entrants’ to the UK in 2018/19 grew by 42% (around 5,250) year on year with comparative China numbers up around 13%.   We also know that in the year to September 2019 the UK saw continuing and notable increases in Tier 4 study visas to students from China and India with visas to Chinese nationals up 21% to 119,697 and those to Indian nationals up 63% to 30,550.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that post-study work rights are driving applications from India even harder for 2020/21.

With numbers from India growing so rapidly it’s worth considering whether this might impact the growth opportunities of different institutions. 

Reputation and Rankings Key to Chinese Enrolments

In the last four years, where data is available at institution level, seven universities achieved growth of over 600 Chinese student enrolments and growth of 50% or more in their Chinese enrolments.  Strong brand and rankings focus in the China market mean it’s no surprise that five of the seven are Russell Group universities.  The University of the Arts seems to have been able to develop a niche brand in a growing area of study.     

Table 1: Universities Increasing Enrolment from China by over 600 and 50% from 2014/15 to 2017/18

Source: HESA

The obverse is broadly true as well.  Lower ranking universities have, generally, found it more difficult to recruit students from China with the eight showing the biggest numerical losses being over 4,000 enrolments down over the four years.  None of them are ranked above 40 in the Times University Guide 2020.

Table 2: Universities with the Largest Decline in Chinese Student Enrolments 2014/15 to 2017/18

Source: HESA

As an aside, it is interesting to note that the University of Leicester switched pathway operator from Study Group to Navitas during the course of the year.  No doubt they will be hoping for a reversal of fortunes under their new arrangements.  On the other side of things Cardiff University, one of the most successful in recent years as seen in Table 1, has just appointed Study Group so there would appear to be some pressure to perform.  Sunderland and Hull may be wondering whether their involvement with CEG is delivering as needed.

Growth of Indian Students Less Ranking Dependent

We are awaiting the HESA data at institutional level for 2018/19 to see how the growth in Indian student numbers will affect the dynamics.  If 2014/15 to 2017/18 is any guide it could begin to level the playing field with some lower ranked universities able to make ground.  Between those years total enrolments from India grew by 1425 but the seven universities with over 150 additional enrolments grew their Indian numbers by an aggregate 1870.

Table 3: Universities Increasing Enrolment from India by over 150 and 50% from 2014/15 to 2017/18

Source: HESA

It is reasonable to note that the big losers in terms of enrolments from India were also at the lower end of the reputation and ranking scale.  West London (-380). Staffordshire (-340) and Cardiff Metropolitan (-300) showed the most significant losses.  But equally, there were no significant gains made by most Russell Group universities.

It is difficult to find any obvious cause and correlation in the grouping that has done well.  One factor, for some of the institutions listed in the table, is likely to be the value for money they offer in terms of fees and other expenses.  For students taking out personal finance it seems reasonable to assume that universities with lower fees, even if below the top rankings, may be attractive.    

Another factor which may be worth considering is the relative strength of the Indian community in some locations.  London (Queen Mary) is always a strong draw but the most recent UK Census information indicates that in 2011 there were significant communities in Leicester (De Montfort), Nottingham, Preston (UCLAN), Northampton and Newcastle (Northumbria).  All that being said, it is worth noting that the University of Leicester lost 90 Indian students over the period – it may just be that De Montfort is eating its lunch.

Future Disrupted?

What makes it even more tantalising is the recently released top line HESA data on international enrolments in 2018/19.  As one would expect five of the big Russell Group players have been top performers with Edinburgh, Kings College, Leeds, Sheffield and University College London each adding over 1,000 new international students year on year.  Their gains account for around 25% of the overall 23,280 increase in total international student enrolments.

But the data also shows that East London (505), Greenwich (660), Hertfordshire (475), Nottingham Trent (470) and Teeside (490) all had faster year on year growth in international enrolments than Exeter (345), Warwick (385), Lancaster (60) and Newcastle (40).  It’s a little early to call the outcomes and the figures are not available at institutional level by country of domicile.  But there is just a hint that the return of post-study work visas has disrupted enrolment patterns and some lower-ranked universities may have the most cause to be grateful.

Notes:

  1. The term ‘international’ is used here to described students paying international fees and excludes European-union students who pay the same fee as UK students.
  2. The data in the Future Disrupted? Section is taken from HESA data:
    1. HE student enrolments by HE provider and domicile Academic year 2018/19
    1. HE student enrolments by HE provider and domicile Academic year 2017/18

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

Another Canadian University Pathway Coming Soon?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image by David Peterson from Pixabay

SHOPPING FOR IDEAS: HIGH STREET TO HIGHER EDUCATION

Higher education should look to the disruption in retailing and other sectors to develop a roadmap to the future.  While no two sectors are the same, the notion that novel and implementable ideas can come from other alternative disciplines has a good history1.  The parallels between retailing and higher education offer particularly fertile territory for consideration. 

There are, arguably, particular similarities between department stores and universities.  Both offer wide ranges of largely similar products and make claims about their quality, customer experience and real estate to justify premium prices.  Moreover, in recent years both have been driven to special offers, discounting and increased marketing costs in an attempt to secure the volume of customers they need to survive.

Breaking Bad As Demographics, Technology and Globalisation Bite

The heyday of high street and the shopping mall, from the mid to late 20th century, coincided with the ‘massification’ of higher education2.  The demands of the baby boomer generation coupled with consistent c5% annual real GDP growth in developed market economies from 1950 to the early 1970s3 underpinned both.  Changing demographics and the relative decline in government investment has made higher education as vulnerable as retailing to changing market forces.   

In that context, headlines reported a record number of over 7,000 store closures in 20174. While doomsday predictions that “50% of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. will be bankrupt in 10 to 15 years”5 may be wide of the mark, closures are accelerating.  For universities it may be ominous that the major losers in retailing were department stores which “have been suffering a death by a thousand cuts for years due to poor merchandising and outdated business models”.6

Further broad comparisons between the sectors can be drawn.  Technology is often cited as a key factor in the disruption of retail and higher education, and education is rapidly moving to a point where attendance at a bricks and mortar institution is optional.  But even if technology had not created generations of digital natives who learn in new ways it has placed the power of search and comparison is in their hands. 

Globalisation has also had a marked and growing impact in both sectors with a shift in favour of Asia Pacific over the past ten years7.  China’s improving performance in global university rankings and its plans to be the dominant global centre for international students by 20498 suggest the direction of travel. The traditional distribution of international students from east to west appears to be shifting rapidly and institutions need to develop effective responses.

Finding The Path From Apocalypse To Renaissance

Against these headwinds there are a small number of universities in the world who may have the financial and brand strength to resist these global tides.  Short of a catastrophic scandal, financial mismanagement or a government bent on vandalising its international credibility it is probably safe to assume that the likes of Harvard, Cambridge, and other national or private treasures are secure. 

For the rest there is an urgent need to refine, realign and reinforce what they offer to students.  A germane lesson for them from retailing is that, despite the headlines, overall in 2017 more stores opened than closed and retail sales grew by 4.5% (over $232bn)9.  While the media were coining the phrase ‘retail apocalypse’, smart investors and business operators were moulding their offer to meet the needs of a changing world. 

Retailers have invested significant brain power and cash in trying to find a way through the storm.  Their focus on their value proposition – how they solve customers’ problems at the right price – is a useful tool for focusing on what is important.  And there are a number of themes which universities might consider.

1.            Provide unique and compelling products and experiences

Dreary, derivative and duplicated product lines are not enough in an era where a world of choice is accessible at the touch of a button.  Universities must examine their own “product lines” (degrees and other courses) and determine how much they can be streamlined into areas that are both market sensitive and differentiable from the competition.  While the campus experience is not dead it cannot be taken for granted, and the marketing lessons of experience-driven destinations such as national parks and vacation resorts might provide inspiration.

2.            Online delivery must be world-class

Costco, Walmart, Nordstrom and others have invested heavily in ensuring that their online involvement is well resourced and competitive with the best that Amazon can offer (their success is one reason that Amazon has begun advertising itself in traditional media10).  For most universities the reach and scalability of online is attractive but they will be competing against the rest of the world.  Only the very best quality delivery of market relevant courses with full academic commitment and outstanding user experiences will stand the test of time.

3.            Pace, performance and personalisation  

Retailers have optimized supply chains and utilized technology to ensure that product is always available, personalisation is possible, delivery never disappoints, and repeat business is maximised.  For universities excellence must extend from the first point of contact to the building of alumni networks and lifelong learning.  If a programme of study or administrative process is not competitive, a disciplined university will recognise the problem quickly and adjust it or eliminate it.

4.            One size does not fit all  

Sears declined from being the largest retailer in the US in 1989 to near bankruptcy in 2018, but Dollar General, 7-11, Aldi and O’Reilly Auto are among those opening stores.  Value, convenience and specialisation have given them growth opportunities in the market.  It’s a reasonable reminder that there are millions of students around the world with differing needs and resources.  Universities should actively focus on understanding the market, seek differentiation and develop their niche.

Perhaps the best rallying call from retailing is what Deloitte has termed ‘the great retail bifurcation’11 with growth for ‘price’ and ‘premium’ performers contrasting with ‘balanced’ retailers, who have broadly similar offerings, lagging behind; they suggest that the moment is ripe for a modern renaissance which uproots traditions, institutions and thoughts.  More starkly they comment on the need for ‘new and unique capabilities’ and reflect the degree to which the ‘new requirements differ from the old operating model’.

All told, however, the most significant and radical change needed may be an unravelling of the emotional commitment to delivery and outcomes which remain organised around a model first established in the 11th century.  The large fixed-cost base of buildings and grounds have also come to be seen as more central to the identity of most universities than meeting the needs of their students.  There is a pressing need to focus hard on the needs and expectations of the customer and consider new models and concepts.  Looking outside the sector for inspiration may help.

References

  1. Sometimes the Best Ideas Come from Outside Your Industry, Poetz, Franke and Schreier, Harvard Business Review, November 21, 2014
  2. ‘The United States Country Report: Trends in Higher Education from Massification to Post- Massification’, Gompert, Iannozzi, Shaman and Zemsky, National Center for Postsecondary   Improvement, Stanford, 1997)              
  3. Multinationals and Global Capitalism: From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century, Geoffrey G. Jones, Oxford University Press, 2005).
  4. 2017 just set the all-time record for store closings, CNN Business, October 25, 2017
  5. Quote by Clayton Christensen, from Inside Higher Education, November 21, 2017
  6. Debunking the Retail Apocalypse, Holman and Buzek,  IHL Group, August, 2017
  7. Global Powers of Retailing 2015 Embracing Innovation, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, 2015
  8. Carma Elliot OBE, Director China British Council, quoted in The Pie, December 19, 2018
  9. Retail’s Radical Transformation/Real Opportunities Beyond the “Retail Apocalypse” to a Bright Future, Holman and Buzek,  IHL Group, August, 2018
  10. Jeff Bezos used to hate spending money on ads, Eugene Kim, CNBC, February 1, 2019
  11. The Great Retail Bifurcation, Why the retail ‘apocalypse’ is really a renaissance, Deloitte Insights, Deloitte Development LLC, 2018