Category: Pathways

Universities Launching Pathways Themselves, Part 4

“To enhance the international student experience on your campus, it can be useful to mirror some of your campus practices for outgoing study abroad students”

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

In addition to Larry Kuiper and Rick Rattray, Mark Grace, the former Senior Director of Academic Affairs at NAFSA has contributed to this post.

Student Services

Under the circumstances of the past few weeks, it’s almost hard to imagine a calm time when international students will once again be returning to campuses in the US, but odds are that time will come.  So when the dust settles on COVID-19 priorities, it may be a great time to review your university’s practices related to international student services.

In our previous instalments in this series we’ve asserted that if you’ve been at all considering a pathway partnership, you likely are doing so to address some level of perceived underperformance in your international approach and are considering outside support to bridge particular gaps.

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Universities Launching Pathways Themselves, Part 3

“Too often, we see communication that’s unidirectional from institution to agency”

Part 3 of our 4 part series on pathway programs. For part 1, please click here

In addition to Larry and Rick, who authored blogs #1 and #2, there is another co-author on this blog: Vanessa Andrade is director, International Partnership & Program Development and Deputy Senior International Officer at California State University, Northridge.

In our previous blogs, we noted that if you are thinking about a pathway partner, it is likely you are seeking outside help to overcome internal resource constraints.

Our contention throughout this series has been that much of the value that third-party pathway providers offer can be developed in-house, using a coordinated approach we call the Coordinated International Student Success Infrastructure (CiSSi) model.

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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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Using your university website as a recruitment tool

“A smooth mobile-responsive website acts as a trust signal for students, encouraging them to find out more about your institution”

Recent research from UniQuest revealed that 91% of international offer holders at partner institutions were “stealth applicants”, meaning they made no contact with the institution before applying. What’s more, over half of the students only used the university website when deciding on where to study.

Prospective students often use multiple sources of information and more than one device, which can make tracking their journey to application incredibly difficult. Universities must increasingly invest in sophisticated multi-channel tracking and attribution modelling, in order to gain insightful data on students and leverage the information sources that influence applications.

However, the research also highlights the importance of providing students with informative and engaging content across your website, as well as an excellent user experience. Some universities are already taking advantage of this, with the University of Sussex and Keele University both launching new websites for their respective International Study Centres.

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Bundled pathways unbundled. Can universities have their cake and eat it too?

“In the context of financially strapped universities with decreasing domestic enrolments, the prospect of large numbers of international students paying out-of-state tuition rates makes the bundled pathway an attractive proposition”

Are so-called bundled pathways the future of international student recruitment at US universities, and the world over? At a time when the international education sector is dominated by conversations on change, Jean-Marc Alberola, president of Bridge Education Group takes a detailed look at options for internationalisation in higher education. 

In recent years, much debate and a significant amount of controversy has surrounded the advent of third-party international student pathway programs in the US higher education marketplace. The debate is particularly active in international educator circles and was a hot topic at the NAFSA annual conference this year, with at least four sessions devoted to the theme, including a study commissioned by NAFSA itself.

These new pathway programs, whose main protagonists include a few large, often private-equity backed firms such as Shorelight Education, StudyGroup, INTO, Navitas and Kaplan, have been well documented in the press.

Some of the confusion and misunderstanding surrounding international student pathway programs is a result of the term being broadly used to describe a wide variety of models, including intensive English programs that prepare students for university admission, TOEFL waiver partnerships, and progression from community colleges to four-year institutions.

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Off the beaten pathway: why UK universities should open up to more partnerships

“It may be that the rapid adoption of embedded pathways by UK universities is a case of hungry institutions in an international restaurant ordering the only menu item they understand, as opposed to the best dish”

University pathway programmes for international students have been the subject of much debate in recent years. The UK pathway market is flourishing, but universities should consider they’re limiting their options with a single partner, argue Prateek Aneja and Ryan Craig, vice president and managing director at University Ventures.

One of the most remarkable developments in UK higher education over the past decade has been the rapid adoption of embedded pathway programmes by universities. Embedded pathways serve international students through Foundation Year programmes – including EFL training and development of general academic preparedness – that are located on or adjacent to campus, are operated by commercial providers, and guarantee progression to students who achieve at the requisite levels.
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Prateek Aneja and Ryan Craig
Prateek Aneja is Vice President at University Ventures, a firm reimagining the future of higher education and creating new pathways from education to employment, where Ryan Craig is Managing Director. Craig is also author of College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education.
http://universityventures.com/