Recruiting Intelligence

A general and intriguing observation from NAFSA 2026: academic leaders working in blue state institutions tend to be knee deep in defensive postures due to policy changes, while academic leaders working in red state institutions tend to be getting on with the work. Where do you fall?

If there’s one thing NAFSA confirmed, it’s that those who attended are focused on resilience. You’ll find slides below that speak to this point and offer recommendations.

For university leadership, international staff, and current and prospective international students, it is palpable. Which is why NAFSA and other industry conferences are so valuable. They remind us we are in this together, working toward a greater good. There’s power in numbers and in the learnings we gather from being outside our own institutions for a few days.

Speaking of in it together, we were thrilled that industry insider Lindsey Lopez joined the Intead team just before attending NAFSA this year. As our new chief strategy officer,  her 20+ years of senior leadership experience with enrollment management, domestic and global recruitment, edtech tools, and so much more adds the kind of hard-won perspective our clients are leaning on right now. Lindsey is working hand in hand with Chief Operating Officer Britt Godshalk, Director of Marketing Analytics Iliana Joaquin, and the rest of the Intead team.

Industry veteran Steven Boyd of Quinnipiac University offered sage advice during a NAFSA 2026 session: identify three conference takeaways you want to implement or pursue, write them on a sticky note, and post them where you’ll see them.

He’s not wrong. Attending NAFSA is like drinking from a fire hose. Centering your focus on the learnings applicable to your work is how to put the conference to work for you.

Taking Steven’s cue, today we offer three motivational ideas shared at NAFSA that have stuck with us, from an inspiring session by Barbara Bouza, designer of spaces and facilities who leads CannonDesign, insights from Karin Fischer of the Chronicle of Higher Education, and strategies for enrollment success in this political climate from our session with Steven Boyd and Karissa Peckham of Quinnipiac University, Melissa Wharton of University of Missouri-Kansas City, and our own Britt Godshalk. Our notes and a link to our session presentation deck follow. Read on…

Chaos is costly. Clarity is half off.

This truth brought to you by The Economist’s latest flash sale. Sometimes an ad sums up a vibe so neatly. Maybe the ad just caught us at the right moment. (Um, thanks Meta?)

Whether it was the morning coffee or the marketing kitsch, The Economist's attempt to get us to subscribe (we already do) served as a good reminder of the cost of chaos.

Pick your tumult: visa whack-a-mole, Duration of Status policy threats, internal budget cuts, NSF decimation, demographic cliff, you name it. The disruptions of the past 18+ months have cost our industry its equilibrium, individuals their sanity, and certainly some enrollment.

The numbers speak loudly: 97,000 fewer student US visas were awarded last summer, driven largely by a near-monthlong freeze on visa interviews. (Canada, UK, and Australia have similar downbeats). Now, DHS may adjust the “Duration of Status” for F-1 and J-1 visa holders, replacing it with a fixed admission period of up to four years and dimming the luster on some students’ dreams of a US degree. And, if history tells us anything, it won’t be the last disruption our international student hopefuls and enrollment leaders will endure.

Despite the continued chaos, we have actual work to do. Handwringing be damned! Students still want to enroll at your institution. Time to busy your team securing the fall cohort by shoring up those leads. This is ground you know well.

Read on for insights from our team, including our latest addition to Intead, Lindsey Lopez, on what to prioritize now to bring your 2026/27 leads into focus and produce your target yield.

Read on…

How is your LinkedIn feed treating you lately? The algorithm has so finely curated mine at this point that I have a seemingly endless stream of academic news from a wide variety of “mostly” insightful posts. All good food for thought.

Mostly, I scroll and learn. Other times, I marvel at the patterns of folks trying (perhaps too hard) to get noticed. Sometimes I’m frustrated by the all-too-common story arc: take something well known and accepted as truth and call it into question. These posts often prompt reader engagement but act as just a surface-level contrarian view with little insight to truly add to the conversation. And that description is likely generous.

There are many of us in the field seeking insights to help us navigate these troubled times. Academia, the headlines seem to tell us, is under tremendous strain. True enough, and yet, a lot of those headlines end up being a whole lot of noise.

History shows us that troubled times come and go. Some institutions will fail to ride out the storm. Those that do make it to the other side sometimes prevail by what seems to be dumb luck. Others plan and adapt, giving their institution the best shot at future success. With so much noise in the system and so many distractions, planning and adapting require focus – a focus that helps you see the important signals separate from the noise. No easy task.

Two recent trips to DC for conferences (AIEA and WIEC) offered the desirable opportunity to meet with our community, maintain connections, share experiences, and noodle about what really is noise and what the truly important signals are. Really helpful, as so many in our field seem to spend a lot of time wringing their hands and falling into the rut of complaining. It’s easy to do when times are legitimately tough.

But that isn’t leadership.

And that is not planning and adapting.

Below we offer two valuable focus areas where we believe academic leaders can move the needle despite the turbulence AND two helpful resources in times like these.

Read on…

Next week the British are coming, albeit to the opposite US  coast. 

As part of a broader effort celebrating collaboration between the US and the UK, the British Council’s Study UK team is hosting a large pop-up experience in Los Angeles designed to give area students, families, and educators an up-close look at what UK higher education is and can be. Sixteen UK universities, along with an array of niche experts and exhibits, are crossing the pond to put their best foot forward for students contemplating their academic futures. 

Full disclosure, the Intead team is proudly part of the effort to develop the cross-border collaboration.  

Though the event has been in the works for quite some time, as May 22 draws near, the timing seems particularly relevant as increasing numbers of US students are evaluating and taking advantage of study abroad opportunities. 

The UK, of course, is already a top study abroad destination for American students. 

Outbound with room to grow

In 2023-24, nearly 300,000 Americans studied abroad for academic credit, a 6% increase from the year prior, according to the latest data from IIE, marking a strong rebound toward pre-pandemic levels (~347,000 in 2018-19).

That said, only about 9% of US undergraduates study abroad for credit in any given year, and most for a short stint.

So, while the trend line is moving upward, participation remains modest relative to the opportunities available.

Most (64%) US study-abroad students go to Europe, with Italy, Spain, the UK, and France hosting nearly half of all participants. Japan became the fifth-largest destination for the first time in 2023-24, with 16% growth.

More interesting than the short-term numbers is what’s happening at the full-degree level.

IIE’s Project Atlas reports that more than 95,000 Americans are enrolled in full-degree programs at institutions abroad. Fifteen years ago, that number was much lower at 41,000 (with some caveats due to expanded reporting countries). Still, IIE confirms the trend is clear: more US students are opting to earn their full credentials abroad.

An increasing number of countries are taking note. 18 countries, including the UK, now have institutions accepting the Common App, meeting US students in a system they already know and trust. Our recent discussions with the Chinese Consulate in DC also point to increased efforts to attract international students to degree programs in China.

Those of us committed to the ideal of international education and the global ties these programs create have always understood the appeal. And while the number of American students doing so remains modest, the outbound trend is real, the drivers are tangible, and the institutions paying attention now will be better positioned for what’s coming.

Read on for our tips on how institutions can leverage this trend to enhance their connection to their current students and attract new applicants.

Growth follows investment and attitude.

We talk about growth mindsets. We talk about innovation. These are attitudes or approaches to our work and our lives. There are best practices we can apply to achieve our goals. And superseding best practices are our actual practices. Our efforts to be great.

Those who take growth seriously invest their personal energy into using past knowledge to envision what could be. These are the people who lead in small ways and big. We look to them for inspiration, and they motivate us to do more.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in the Junction 91 Gathering in Delhi. I also joined the GenNext tour and visited academic leaders in four additional cities (Ahmedabad/GIFT City, Jaipur, Hyderabad, and Bangalore).

The GenNext tour, led by Girish Ballolla and Pritika Sachar, was top-notch. The GenNext team provided the connections to be sure we met with senior-level folks at each university. Also important when traveling internationally, when so many things can easily go wrong, GenNext had the logistics down with all the city hopping, ensuring we arrived where we were supposed to be each day of the trip. 

The conversations were eye-opening, refreshing, and valuable. We spoke candidly to students along the way. 

Here’s the thing: India is all about growth mindset right now. oh, and investment.

This, while the big four English-speaking student destinations (US, UK, Australia, and Canada) are all struggling to figure out what they care about and where to invest.  

Read on for insights about what this means for our work building global campuses and some eye-opening global data. Don't miss our bottom line recommendation at the end! 

Students used to learn about universities the old-fashioned way: browsing websites. (How very Millennial of them.)

Soon enough, social media became prospective students’ means of discovery.

Now? Increasingly, students are using AI to identify and evaluate their academic options. Long before they see your website, they have already developed an AI-informed opinion.

We have helpful slides available below from our AIEA session presentation by Balaji Krishnan, Vice Provost at University of Memphis and our own Marketing Analytics Director, Iliana Joaquin.

One SIO told us afterward, “That was the most useful session of the conference.” We’re not surprised. The content shift happening right now isn’t simply about search rankings. It’s about how institutions are being understood in an AI-mediated world.  

To be certain, websites and social media are still incredibly important to student search processes. Even direct mail and out-of-home have their place in the marketing mix. But the truth is AI has quickly become a (The?) go-to research tool for students and their parents.

In case you need stats for confirmation, the Pew Research Center found:

• ~64% of US teens report using AI chatbots
• ~ 3 in 10 use them daily for questions, research, and learning

Further research from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that roughly 60% of US adults have used AI to search for information. This is from July 2025. That number is even higher now. Consider the frequency of your own use of AI tools compared to last year.

If students aren’t using ChatGPT or Claude, Google’s Gemini often steps in as AI gatekeeper. It’s fundamentally reshaping the way students conduct research and what they see when they search online, including about your institution.

And so, AI is now the first campus visit.

Below we offer 3 steps you can take to improve the value of your content for students’ AI searches. And yes, you can try this at home: try an open-ended prompt: “What university is best to become a [fill in career of choice]?”

Read on for the quick notes worth sharing with your marketing and recruitment teams plus access to our slides…  

After months of visa delays and a June freeze on student visa interviews, the numbers are in. No doubt you’ve seen them. And we all anticipated them. For those in the know, there was no surprise here. 

New international student visa issuances dropped 36% year over year – an indicator of continued enrollment declines on the horizon. And if you are just talking about India–with its 62% drop–the picture is even more stark. The impact is uneven across the U.S. High prestige (aka the highly rejective) institutions will not struggle for enrollment. Others have some adapting to do. 

But we don’t trade in pessimism.  

Our view is more pragmatic. Because there’s always a path forward, if you know where to look and how to act. Challenge is the source of opportunity. Some will fall by the wayside, and usually, those are the unprepared, less thoughtful, highly inefficient, and fearful-of-change institutions.

The fact is, the US continues to hold the title of most sought after study destination while other valuable study destinations have rising allure. Lower cost paths such as US community colleges have a stronger power to draw than they have in years past. And the two tools we've been harping on since 2015 are suddenly aha moments for so many in our field: international alumni networks and a focus on career outcomes.

Those of you who are long-time followers of this blog are nodding along as others seem to be just waking up to long-time student motivation realities.

As much as Tianyu Shen’s undergraduate years as a Chinese student in the US were about belonging, his postgraduate experience in Boston revealed the other side of the international student journey: employability, professional development, and deeper cultural immersion.

After a decade of studying, working, and contributing to US higher education, Tianyu Shen has returned to China – a move that mirrors what many Chinese students who studied in America have experienced. As so many countries are revising their policies about who may come and how long they may stay, this recounting of Tianyu’s experience is particularly poignant.

Many of you know Tianyu, the affable, talented Data Analyst who did some amazing work during his time at Intead as a STEM OPT student. Like so many international students, Tianyu’s initial inclination to study abroad was rooted in adventure. His initial thought more than a decade ago: Let’s go to New Zealand! And, like so many others from China, his parents redirected him to the US.

So that was 2015, and at the time, IIE was reporting that US universities were experiencing the highest growth rate in 35 years, with China as the key driver. At the time, the influx of Chinese students in particular helped many US universities launch new academic degree programs that benefited American students as well as international cohorts. Now, in hindsight, analysts point to how the revenue generated by the growth in international students from 2010-2020 gave many institutions the capacity to invest in infrastructure and academic advances that created huge opportunities for the entire campus.

Now, there’s a very different narrative being played out in the US and globally. We wonder where Tianyu’s parents would advise him to go for study abroad if he were starting his journey today.

We think you’ll enjoy his observations about Hollywood movies, and comparisons of Boston, MA to Lincoln, NE.

AI drives more than its fair share of FOMO, especially among team leadership. It’s true across industries, and enrollment management is no exception. The promise of faster, smarter, cheaper is undeniably enticing. And leaders know they don’t know what they don’t know.

What they do know is that they need more efficiency from their team. And they keep hearing promises about new AI integrations that can seamlessly replace many human steps in their processes.