Recruiting Intelligence

From the annual CIEE conference in Paris to Pie Live in Boston then AIRC in Phoenix and a super quick turnaround to ICEF in Miami, Q4 literally flew by. You, too? We wouldn’t change a thing, of course. It’s hard to replace the simple act of togetherness. It’s how ideas come to life. Cliché? Fine. But it’s so true. 

Sharing our research and student recruitment campaign results with our community always feels great. We’re here to make you more effective (and have interesting insights to share at your team meetings).  

A few key Q4 takeaways we will absolutely be bringing into the new year: 

• The global competition for international students is stronger by the day, and institutions need to be increasingly smarter in their approach to international education, including recruitment. Can you be? (hint: it has to do with the skill sets you access to do the work) 
• China and India are hot topics as always, especially India’s dramatic rising numbers of incoming graduate (and undergraduate) students.  
• Enrollment departments are eager to leverage AI. The question is: how? And, is it ready for us? 
• More must be done to support student mental health. So much more. 
• And how about the new IIE Open Doors report?! Lagging data that points toward the future. 
  

Just a few notes we’re thinking about. Clearly there’s no lack of issues for our industry to address. So, if in the midst of this really busy few months you didn’t have time to read all of our posts, we understand. That’s why we’ve compiled this quarterly at-a-glance post. It covers all our news from how to navigate TikTok’s ad platform to what’s going on with higher ed in India and so much in between that you and your team won’t want to miss.Read on… 

Market diversification is one obvious answer to sustaining enrollment numbers. How to successfully go about it, however, is often less obvious. Looking beyond your own campus to see how others are doing it can help. So, we have a story to share. 

If you've seen our other case studies, you know we share more concrete details and data than any other agency out there. We want to make you that much more dangerous and demonstrate the value of investing in customized, creative, and well-tracked paid campaigns.

In 2021, a mid-tier, public, Midwest regional university needed to recruit international students. It’s a student segment they’d had success with in the past, but Covid, as it does, threw a wrench in their recruitment efforts. It became clear they needed new ways to reach prospective students residing overseas. We know you were wrestling with this very issue at the time, too. We all were. 

Find us at AIRC and ICEF. Let’s connect! 

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations and we hope you can join us. 

• AIRC Annual Conference – As you read this, our team is in Phoenix offering our full-day digital marketing workshop. If you are at the AIRC conference, please look for us here in Phoenix, Dec 6-9, 2023 
• ICEF North America Workshop in Miami, Dec 11-13, 2023. We'll be offering a half-day workshop on Dec 11 and meeting with everyone on Dec 12-13.

Let us know if you’ll come share a cup of coffee and a conversation about all things global and digital (info@intead.com) 

Back to the results of our digital campaigns in Bangladesh and Vietnam.

With a media buy budget of $35,000, the institution was admittedly skeptical they’d be able to make any meaningful progress in a new market. We always want more wiggle room with our media buys, but we also felt certain they could succeed, with the right approach. They trusted our experience and the market research we delivered.

Our mission: understand who and where the prospective families are and then reach them in ways that prompt engagement. So our data detectives and creative talents set out to: 

• Confirm the institution’s high-value student recruitment regions and where there might be room to grow
• Develop on-brand, targeted, and effective digital marketing assets   
• Launch and optimize digital campaigns to generate highly qualified leads (and build awareness, but really, we all want the high-value leads) 
• And of course, report on campaign analytics to inform future marketing investments.

By any measurement, it went really well. One $12,000 media buy generated 40 million impressions, 500,000 clicks, 1,087 leads, 122 applications, 40 admitted students, and 7 enrolled. But who’s counting? (Please say you are!)

It was a fast, 14-week campaign involving two markets, two academic programs, and two social platforms. Want more insight? Download our free case study. Read on… 

Forget Wordle. Here’s a real problem for you to solve: If India, which recently unseated China as the world’s most populous nation, has over 1.4 billion people and 17.5% are aged 15 – 24 (that's ~240M students), will its roughly 1,100 universities have enough seats for all its university-eligible students?

The short answer: no.

Clearly, India's education leaders have some planning to do.

Take a step back and consider: India is enjoying a big year. They just landed on the moon. Hosted the G20 summit. Are top-dog population-wise. And its fast-growing economy is as strong as ever. A Pew Research Center survey this year even shows a full 68% of Indians feel their country is growing in global influence. All really good news for India.

But the devil is always in the details with rising nations and the truth is, there are too many young Indians who can’t get the higher education they want. At least not now and not at home.

Opportunities to Meet In Person 

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations and we hope you can join us. 

• PIE News Live in Boston, Nov 13-15, 2023 
• AIRC Annual Conference – we’ll be offering our full day digital marketing workshop here in Phoenix, Dec 6-9, 2023 
• ICEF North America Workshop in Miami, Dec 11-13, 2023 

Let us know if you’ll come share a cup of coffee and a conversation about all things global and digital (info@intead.com) 

The Indian government is fully aware of this growth and for the first time its University Grants Commission has taken strides to welcome foreign universities into the country. (Note: only institutions in the top 500 global rankings need apply.) Deakin University and University of Wollongong, both of Australia, are the first to be granted approval. You can bet others (and we’ve had interesting conversations with a few) are doing the financial analysis and considering the blueprints for academic collaborations of their own.

One key caveat of the regulations, India is not recognizing online degrees from foreign institutions. India’s leadership wants in-person set-ups. As the former vice-chancellor of New Delhi’s National University of Educational Planning and Administration puts it, “Online education goes against the expected gains of internationalization.” Plus, the government would like to increase on-campus higher education access in-country while also attracting foreign students to India. Makes sense on multiple levels.

You know what else makes sense? US institutions vying for Indian students’ attention. And yes, of course you are already recruiting in this key region and have seen an uptick in actual enrollments. US visa approvals of Indian applications have hit record numbers since the pandemic.

Trust us, there’s so much more we think you should consider doing to tap this market effectively. Let us tell you why. Read on…

We may have found your next best way to get you through your commute. And yes, it’s a podcast. You’re likely familiar with the EdUp Experience Podcast, and if not, then it’s time you check it out. Available via the usual lineup of streaming services, EdUp Experience ranks in the top 2% of all podcasts worldwide per Listen Notes. And now they’ve launched a new offshoot that we think is worth a listen.

Called EdUp—International, this new niche series is poised to offer interesting business perspectives on all things international education—a topic we know is as important to you as it is to us. Its host is the talented and always engaging James (Jim) Shafer, director of international student recruitment and enrollment at Touro University. The inaugural episode aired Oct. 22, 2023.

And, when you do tune in, you’ll hear another familiar voice (hint: it’s Ben!). We were thrilled when they asked us to be part of the inaugural episode. We were even more excited when we learned we’d get to spend 45 minutes talking with special guest Dr. LaNitra Berger, president and chair of the board of directors of NAFSA and associate professor at George Mason University. What an awesome honor.

In this premier episode, Dr. Berger offers valuable insights about the evolution of international education, including:

• How universities are responding to the significant crises hitting enrollment offices today
• Differing challenges of small-shop international recruitment teams vs the different yet similar challenges faced by larger, well-staffed operations
• Why giving international educators space to dream and ask “what if” is so important
• …And how playing with The (yes, THE!) Temptations helped build Dr. Berger’s interest in international education 

If any of that sounds interesting, even helpful, then read on for the link to this brand-new podcast…

Bringing the real world into the classroom is so important to the future of your students. And last week we shared one way Suffolk University is taking action (find that post here). A sort of ​Career Readiness 101. This week, Career Readiness 201 as we talk about you and offer a helpful career-prep checklist, complete with on-campus practices and recruiter tips, too.  

Opportunities to connect in person and hear our latest market intel:

• Join us in Paris Nov 8-10 at CIEE's 76th Annual Conference.
• Join us in Boston Nov 13-15 at PIE News Live.

Let us know if you'll be joining us (info@intead.com).

Like you, the vast majority of students we talk to are playing the long game. Well before they even have a high school diploma, they’re thinking beyond university. They’re smart consumers and they need to know what their hard-earned degree, whatever the field, will mean for them in the market. Never mind that many of them are not sold on a major yet. They’ve been hearing for years about the rising costs of higher education. They understand ROI more than previous generations ever did. And their parents are all about that approach. 

According to the National Center for Education, in 1980, the annual cost of attending university (including tuition, fees, room, and board) was just over $10,000, adjusted for inflation. Fast forward to the 2019-20 academic year, and that that bottom line had ballooned 180 percent to nearly $29,000. This is the story your prospective students have grown up hearing. For decades, everyone, university administrators and families, have been wringing their hands about the rising costs and yet, not a thing has been done about it. 

For families, the reality is they’re looking at an average debt for a four-year Bachelor’s degree of $34,700 per the Education Data Initiative. And while the standard repayment term for federal loans is 10 years, it can take up to 30 or more years for more than a few students to pay off these loans. You can see their concern. 

Some of us optimistically thought the rise of online education would bring costs down and become a reliable source of revenue for universities and a powerful educational avenue for students. The reality: yes, a growing source of revenue, but the cost to produce truly effective online education that carries students forward with all the tools and supports, is fairly pricey to produce. And the low quality stuff really does not achieve the educational outcomes, so students pay for an ineffective degree - a credential that does not meet real-world employer needs. (See our blog post here about the perceived value of online degrees) 

Of course, these are tuition numbers you’ve thought about many times. And they’re all over the news right now as student loan repayments will soon be back on after a long pandemic pause. Smart students want to know the kind of return they’re going to get on their investment, and they’re looking to you to provide an attractive answer. 

So, what is your answer?

Read on for a checklist of essential ways to help ensure your campus helps prep students for the careers they’re hoping higher ed will lead them to. And yes, we’ve included pro-tips for you recruiters. Read on...

Let’s talk about the messaging your institution uses to convince students and families that what you offer has value. Pretty simple stuff, right? Maybe not. You’ll appreciate the helpful checklist that follows in part 2 of this series. Think marketing differentiators in a competitive marketplace. You won’t want to miss it. 

Opportunities to connect in person and hear our latest market intel:

• Join us in Paris Nov 8-10 at CIEE's 76th Annual Conference.
• Join us in Boston Nov 13-15 at PIE News Live.

Let us know if you'll be joining us (info@intead.com).

But first a story. 

Ok, so you are up in front of your board of directors presenting your business growth and marketing plan. You and your team have been figuring this out for a while and last night was a late one as you worked together to put the finishing touches on your slides. There were still disagreements among your team, but you settled the issues and felt nervously ready. 

Everyone has a speaking role but some on your team are stronger than others. Some don’t have appropriate clothes to wear for the presentation so they borrow something professional looking from friends. Some sway nervously back and forth and read their slides rather than engage with the very important board members. You realize early on in the presentation that the data presented on slide 7 is wrong. It doesn’t support your final recommendation. Maybe no one will notice. 

It is your Marketing Business class final presentation to a mock board of directors and as first year undergrads, your team is anything but seasoned. Your final grade is riding on how your team performs. 

Every semester for years now, I have had the honor of judging the final marketing analysis presentations of undergraduate students in a marketing business class at Suffolk University. A good friend of mine there teaches the class and gathers a set of judges from the biz to help the students get some real world feedback. Each judging session is as different as the teams presenting. It’s a blast for us, the judges. Nerve racking for the students. 

Recently, the department asked a few of the real-world judges for additional input and it truly impressed me. They wanted to hear from us as employers to understand what we look for in candidates as we hire. What tools should their students know how to use? What business concepts and approaches are critical to us as employers so their graduates will crush the interview?  

That line of questioning is SO important for business programs that often focus so much on esoteric business theory and simplistic case studies while purporting to be all about the real world. As our Intead Advisory Board Member Hillary Dostal, global marketing advisor at Pegasystems, says: There is best practice and then there is actual practice.  

This goes for your team, too. Read on…

For an industry that takes a lot of heat for being slow-moving, it sure feels like change is happening fast. You feel it, too, right? The pains of adjustment and growth. We’re learning to get comfortable getting uncomfortable. And we’re all here for it.

This blog, as you know, is one way you can keep up with important topics and industry trends that are propelling higher ed forward. This past quarter, for instance, we weighed in on pivotal topics like the current drivers of Chinese student mobility (hint: keep recruiting!), the integration of predictive modeling (new inescapable buzzword: AI), non-traditional student’s non-traditional needs, the use of agent aggregators, and more.

Of course, you were busy juggling all this progress with bottom line issues like student yield. So, if you didn’t get to all of our posts, we understand. Read on for a summary of the top news from Intead’s “Recruiting Intelligence” blog and click through on those topics that are meaningful to you now.

As we publish this week, NACAC 2023 just wrapped up in Baltimore. Some great opportunities to connect and learn, as always. And some growing and adjustment pains for NACAC as well as they figure out how to serve their members and regional leaders. Some natural frustration there, to be sure. We’ll share the slides from our presentation and more reflections on the gathering in a couple weeks.

Next Up: Join us in Paris Nov 8-10 at CIEE's 76th Annual Conference. Let us know if you'll be there (info@intead.com).

But here, and now, for many of you, we share some great reading while you are traveling the world in search of students while others are setting the recruitment plans in motion back in the office. Read on…

Chinese student numbers are sobering. With the latest IIE data showing a 26.1% decline in total U.S. incoming students from China in 2021/22, you and your peers are more than aware. It’s the kind of stat that leaves a mark and prompts questions. 

Has your leadership posed this to you: “Should we be in China at this point?” 

If you regularly follow our blog then you know times like these call for a hard look at market diversification. It is a winning strategy. Your admissions team as well as the campus community stand to gain so much by building a diverse student population. Beyond the diverse, cross-cultural learning that is part of your mission, diversifying where you draw students from offers more financial confidence and reslience to your institution.  

Markets fluctuate. Diverse revenue streams stabilize. 

Today we look at why giving up on Chinese students is not in your best interest, nor is it in theirs. Diversify your market reach, yes. But tamping down your work with prospective Chinese families will limit your opportunities and future success. Maybe especially now. 

This is a blog post we think you'll want to share with other leaders on campus. A question: have you looked at the current youth unemployment rate in China?  

Quick aside: Ben and Iliana will be at the NACAC conference presenting alongside our colleagues from AIRC  and Middle Tennessee State University on September 22 in Baltimore. Can we schedule a time to chat? Coffee's on us! We still have room on our schedules.

For over two decades China has solidly been the top sender of students to the U.S. In 2021 alone this singular cohort added $10.5 billion to the U.S. economy per the U.S. Department of Commerce. And that’s on a down year. Sure, India is expected to surpass China in the not-too-distant future (more on that in an upcoming post), but China will remain a strong market.  

Let’s be clear: giving up on Chinese students during this downturn would be a mistake.  

Here’s the thing, while the declining enrollment of Chinese students in America is so much about the pandemic and politics, it’s the day-to-day reality of this cohort that should get your attention. The volume of students and their interest in a foreign education will continue to produce significant enrollment opportunities. Important that your strategy adapts to the times employing the right programs and messaging.  

Why is there continuing demand for a foreign education among Chinese students and families? Consider these current truths: 

• High Youth Unemployment Rates: Unemployment in China within the young urban population is stagnating at an ugly 20%. A number so stubborn and bleak that the government recently stopped reporting it altogether. What’s more, 70% of these unemployed are college graduates, according to a recent article in The Economist. Even more troubling, reliable Chinese economists outside the government suggest that the current youth unemployment rate may be more than double the government's previously published figure.

• The Government’s Get-Tough Response: Xi Jinping’s response to the current sour economy? He tells the young to “eat bitterness” and “seek self-inflicted hardships.” A bitter pill indeed for a generation that has grown up with aspirations of social mobility. After all, China has been more agreeable to private enterprise and other aspects of an open society in recent decades. Significant middle-class growth in China has powered the growth in international education and set a generation of expectations for opportunity. That time appears to be changing, a lot. 
• Disillusioned and Disaffected: A pervasive sentiment among China’s youth is that, regardless of their efforts, achieving a better quality of life feels increasingly unattainable. Jobs are scarce. Cities are less and less affordable to live in. The once semi-open culture now feels less so. Even marriage is losing its appeal. This cohort is disillusioned and disaffected. The government has cracked down on social media posts that refer to "laying flat," (e.g. slowing down and basically giving up). The younger, unemployed/underemployed segment who are discouraged and laying flat become dependent on their parents (referred to as "bite old") as they feel they have very low or no revenue or career prospects.

Economic and political pressures over the next couple years look to be significant within China. Amid this undeniably challenging time for young Chinese citizens, they have eyes on the world through social media. They see opportunity out there.  

Read on for our take on how to reassess and adapt your strategies to better serve this vital demographic in the near term. And we want you to be prepared to adapt as the pressures within China change as they are surely going to.  

Those of us with an entrepreneurial spirit and a global network typically see things others don’t. In the enrollment management field, the entrepreneur mindset is an asset, and yet…and yet, if only those in control of the purse understood what we understand about global markets and student motivations. 

The opportunities are there. The need is growing increasingly intense as revenue sources are threatened or declining. The Intead team shares your entrepreneurial enthusiasm and we are here to offer the insights that help you succeed. It’s one reason we connect so well with our university colleagues.   

Now, if only there were an easy way to satisfy your global entrepreneurial instinct while demonstrating recruitment success in such a way as to unequivocally justify your funding requests and get the programs you envision started and growing.  

Ben and Iliana will be at the NACAC conference presenting alongside our colleagues from AIRC on Sept 22 in Baltimore. Can we schedule a time to chat? Coffee's on us!

The simple truth: the root of successful international student recruitment lies in understanding your target markets, connecting with them, and effectively managing them over time. It has to do with simply doing the work as opposed to finding some magical online tool that suddenly produces all the enrollments you ever wanted. (Note the word magical in that last sentence).

To DO the work, you’ll need to take a deep dive into the macro- and micro-economics of what drives student mobility. Sounds more complicated than it is.  

If you’ve been following our blog, then you know we’ve been helping institutions like yours recruit international students for a very long time. Our multi-cultural marketing team, our bandwidth, and the tech systems in place bring focus and produce macro and micro level insights. Oh, and results. See case studies in our resource center here. 

Our work takes a load off our university counterparts who, like you, are being asked to over deliver while being chronically underfunded (and understaffed). We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t, including three common mistakes that will derail any international student recruitment program. Avoid these at all costs. Read on…

The non-traditional student can be anyone. To have one definition of a non-traditional learner would limit what we’re trying to achieve. And trying to reach all of them is essentially like trying to boil the ocean. – Hillary Dostal, former director of global marketing, recruitment, and enrollment initiatives at Northeastern University  

A 26-year-old who has just been laid off and seeks to complete a credential program and a 45-year-old stay-at-home mom thinking about a return to the workforce will respond to different messages communicated in different ways. These two prospects will be intrigued by selling points that speak to their own interests. They will prefer messaging written in different tones. They get their information through different channels. At their core, they have different wants, needs, concerns, and aspirations.  

Still, both are terrific prospects for your institution.  

This is part 5 in our 5-part blog series on reaching and enrolling non-traditional students. Find part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4. 

So, what to do? Get to know your individual audiences. Speak directly to them on their terms. This is how you convey truly compelling messaging. It doesn’t require separate marketing initiatives per se, but it does require audience segmentation and very specific targeted messaging and execution. 

Importantly, before you dive into the engagement piece, you’ll want to be sure that what you have on offer will help these prospective students succeed. 

This is a very insightful ebook. It underscores the importance of differentiating non-traditional students from traditional students throughout the pipeline–from marketing to student success and engagement. The section on conducting an effective marketing audit is a good conversation starter for strategic development conversations. The real-world insights make the book a unique and valuable resource.  ~ Santhana Naidu, Vice President for Marketing and Communications at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology  

Done well, market segmentation enables you to create better-targeted content and helps ensure that you are spending your resources on initiatives that are the best fit for your institution. This marketing work is simply the organization of your potential students into groups by demographic, psychological, and behavioral characteristics. Segmentation allows you to decide which group represents the biggest opportunity for your institution. And by opportunity, we mean they will find success and their investment of time and money will pay off for them. 

Make that group your target audience and create an offer that will appeal to them specifically. 

Ready to learn how? Read on.