Category: International student recruitment

What’s heating up in international higher education for 2020?

“In 2020, we see campuses adapting to new norms by putting processes in place to proactively help international students feel welcome”

Anthony Rotoli, CEO of Terra Dotta – specialists in enrollment, mobility, and risk management software for higher education –  explores some trends that are likely to heat up in international education in 2020.

The world of international higher education is continually changing – whether due to recent shifts in global dynamics, diversifying student populations or international education-focused priorities evolving across institutions.

Also, many colleges are responding to dropping international enrollment numbers among first-year international students, causing them to modify their own recruitment efforts and programs supporting international education. Let’s explore some trends that we see heating up in international education in 2020.

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The three commandments of international education partnerships

“Finding the right partners isn’t easy, and it’s important to be particular in your search for the right network and connections”

Mark Fletcher is co-founder and CEO of edtech company Cohort Go. In this blog, he explores the importance of creating strong partnerships to keep the international education industry growing and moving forward.

 Partnerships are critical to international education. Whether it’s an international student seeking advice from an education agent, or a university working with a payments provider to facilitate student tuition payments – the international education community is built on a solid foundation of partnerships.

Collaborating with the right partners is vital if you are going to deliver overall success – not just in your business, but to the sector as a whole. Here are three things I’ve learned to help form successful partnerships in international education.

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A bright future for pathway providers

“As many British universities struggle with finances, pathways offer a potential solution”

Study Group was officially accepted onto the Office for Students (OfS) register of Higher Education Providers late last year after meeting requirements for course quality, academic standards, student support and student protection.

This means that, for the first time in the UK, international students studying on a pathway programme have all the same Tier 4 visa rights as international students at UK universities. These rights include new provisions for working and visa extension options, as well as various new privileges for Pre-Masters students.

While Study Group has become the first pathway provider to receive OfS recognition, we expect others to follow close behind. The move signals greater recognition of the valuable services that pathway providers offer and the potential for increased collaboration between universities and these programmes in the future.

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Looking for a Pathway Partner? Part 2: Funding New Programming

“University financial decisions that fail to take the full… benefits of international students into consideration tend to underinvest in getting/holding on to those students”

  • Part 2 of our 4 part series on pathway programs. For part 1, please click here

In our previous post, we discussed the potential of a Coordinated International Student Support Infrastructure (or, CISSI) model as a way of creating a holistic, monitored, and appropriately invested approach to supporting international students. 

Key to this approach is identifying, testing, and continuously improving the services available to international students.  And doing this takes appropriate investment: time, expertise, energy, and yes — money.

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Why Australia can’t afford to neglect international students

“We must continue viewing students as an asset, not just to our economy, but to the prosperity of our nation”

 Have you ever stopped to think about what Australia would be like without international education? Australia’s education industry supports 240,000 jobs. If all those people suddenly became unemployed, our unemployment rate would jump from 5.2% to 7.1%. With a $37.7 billion hole in Australia’s economy, either taxes would go up, or spending on services would go down.

In the past, Australia’s prosperity was driven via wool, wheat and energy exports. Today, international education is one of the country’s strongest revenue generators, with recent federal department of education statistics revealing that over 700,000 international students have lived, worked and studied in Australia this year to date.

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What next for differential pricing?

“News of different price arrangements based on country could very easily go viral with a negative impact on reputations and on business”

Language schools in many parts of the world will often charge a lower price to say, a student from Colombia than to a student from Saudi Arabia, a lower price for a Turk than for a Japanese. 

This practice is commonly referred to as “pricing to the market” and has evolved in large measure because course rates can be viewed as unaffordable – or at least as uncompetitive – by students in certain countries or regions.

Schools may refer to “special offers” or “country promotions” as a rationale for the discounting; those terms are, however, frequently used as a cover for what is, in fact, a permanent differential pricing policy.

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Looking for a Pathway Partner? Maybe Check in the Mirror

“Even without a partner, you can still benefit from emulating the best elements of outside pathway providers”

If you are looking for a pathway partner, it is probably also true that you are looking for some kind of overarching structure to guide your international student management on campus.

You’re also not alone; in 2009, only two outside pathway partnerships existed in the US, while seven years later, there were 55*. Why such interest in partnering? Pathway Providers are most often selected by universities because they bring added value to a university’s international student lifecycle, from student recruiting to student support and career success.

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Leadership – a key focus for this year’s Australian International Education Conference

The conference will provide a platform to showcase the people, practices and nations that are driving change

‘Leading the way’ will be the key focus for the Australian International Education Conference (AIEC) in Perth this year.

Hosted by IDP Education and the International Education Association of Australia (IEAA), the conference will explore how sectoral and industry leaders navigate through increasing disruption, technological developments, policy changes, and changes in international student demand.

The conference will provide a platform for leading experts to showcase the people, practices and nations that are driving change and showing leadership in the sector through new approaches to international education, technology and research.Read More

Could transparency drive better deals for TNE?

“With the number of HEIs delivering UK education overseas growing, universities face a challenge”

To hear that a competitor is worse off than yourself is not always an unpleasant experience. But what if you don’t have a clue what colleagues are paying for a similar service? This is the issue faced by the majority of universities which are paying publishers to give transnational students and staff access to academic content. 

Currently, each of the UK higher education institutions (catering for transnational education (TNE) students, needs to negotiate contracts with a myriad of publishers to give those students the same access to journals, databases and e-books as they do to their registered students in the UK. There’s little transparency and consistency around the licencing content agreements between libraries and publishers which leads to confusion and inconsistency.

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The UK can do better than “the land of fish and chips”

“Far from portraying the UK as a “lifestyle” destination, we should promote our world-leading graduate outcomes”

A radio advert carried by a number of leading Malaysian radio stations for the previous British Council Education Exhibition – promoted the UK as “the land of fish and chips” with universities that “provide scholarships & discounts.”

Is this really how we want to be portraying UK higher education, in any market especially what is a mature and established market, the third largest sender of full-time international students to the UK?

Far from portraying the UK as a “lifestyle” destination and cutting the cost of our world-leading degree programmes, we should change direction and promote our world-leading graduate outcomes.

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