This we know: this is a time to prepare, as in, think 5 years out. #PIELIVE24 in Boston brought industry leaders together as we all move toward the next Trump presidency. Challenging travel and visa regulations will be headed our way. Join us in developing the plans that focus on the international students we support and the progress we need for everyone in this field.
We have work to do.
As one fearless leader, Fanta Aw, said in a recent NAFSA town hall, “We’re not allowed to be tired!” The Intead team found this rallying cry inspiring. Of course, we are tired. It has been a long year. Nevertheless, we all need to pick ourselves up, face forward, and use all the power we can muster to support the changes we know are worth it.
Kicking off the PIE event in Boston, Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, pointed to the need to build on our collective strength to find a clear, unified voice. She asked us to use that voice to bolster our individual work and to serve as the foundational support our allies in Congress need from us so that they can ensure the US remains a strong, safe, desirable destination for international students.
If you are looking for enrollment growth in the current environment, you'll find a Pro Tip at the end of this post you really don't want to miss!
Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team
- AIEA in March and NAFSA in May, we'll be presenting our latest findings at both. Let us know if you want to connect at either of those two events.
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PIE Live Boston wasn’t all politics and regulatory hurdles, though. The rising potential of Africa as a student source market, building trust on campus, university partnerships, and the value of US degrees were all hot topics. Intead’s presentations focused on how to read the latest IIE Open Doors data and our Connecting Dots research about career outcomes for international students. If you’ve not downloaded that yet, find it HERE.
I was honored to share the main stage to foster discussion around the hot-off-the-press IIE student mobility numbers with esteemed colleagues Clare Overmann, CEO of AIEA; John Sherman, CEO of The Evaluation Company; and Maureen Manning, senior vice president of strategy and insights for The PIE, US, who did a truly deft job moderating the discussion.
A clear-eyed look at the new Open Doors data at PIE Live ‘24.
A key insight from that presentation: as the number of students desiring an international education grows globally, and given the fact that a growing number of them will have less money to spend on that education (see discussion below), lesser expensive degree options are going to attract more students.
Your To Do: make a strategic decision about whether you want to:
- Offer less expensive options (think certificates, scholarships, accepting more credits from prior activities to reduce time (and cost) to completed degree, among other options) OR
- Develop stronger value propositions that make your institution stand out as worth the higher cost.
Changing global dynamics have pushed the Intead team to focus our recent research on unearthing real data on international student career outcomes. We will be doing more research on the topic in the months ahead. Reach out if you’d like to be a part of it. We’ll also be presenting on this topic at AIEA and at NAFSA in 2025. We hope you’ll join us at those sessions and participate in the discussion.
At PIE LIVE Boston we were joined by Kerry Salerno, vice president of marketing and communications at Babson College, and Andrew Chen, CEO of F1 Hire, for another presentation on career pathways available to international graduates. Standing room only for that session as institutions are clearly getting the message about arming prospective students with useful career outcome data.
In total, the event brought together 330 colleagues from 25 countries. Since many of you (our faithful readers) were not there, we thought we would bring a bit of the conference to you. Read on to access Intead slides from our sessions on the new Open Doors data as well as career outcomes for F1 students.
While the conference was very much about preparation for the uncertain regulatory environment to come, we should bear in mind that even in 2020 during Trump’s first term, we saw a rich international applicant pool. So, the demand was still there.
Our most recent Know Your Neighborhood report tells us international students won’t be detracted by whomever lives in the White House. That’s the good news. Our work: come together as an industry to ensure the safety of our international students and the certainty they have a place on our campuses and the opportunity for career growth upon graduation.
Our slide decks from PIE Live ’24 are now available below to our blog subscribers.
The most recent IIE report, as Karin Fischer of The Chronicle of Higher Education pointed out in a recent Latitudes newsletter, is all about OPT. The inflow of international students into the US rose just 0.1% during the 2023/24. OPT participation, on the other hand, surged 22% that year. So many of our discussions of late have centered on international student career outcomes – why they matter, where they are, what they garner. Open Doors just proves our point: your institution’s ability to produce and communicate career opportunities is a clear recruitment tactic.
With the stagnant increase of incoming international students, we had a great on-stage discussion on student market share. The US share of the total number of students seeking a foreign education is shrinking despite unwelcoming government policies across UK, Australia, and Canada. US policies are likely to follow suit in some way soon enough.
Our view: it is not all about market share. The number (or volume) of students seeking an international education continues to grow globally (from the current 6M students to 10M to 12M by 2030 depending on whose predictions you believe). That's some pretty rapid growth right there!
Important to consider that the global demand for international education has been on a steady upward trajectory since 2005.
With the advent of social media (let's mark that as significant in 2010), the rate of demand growth has increased even more rapidly. For a good part of the decade 2010-2019, China’s growing middle class created far more wealth and so, many of the new students seeking a foreign education had funds to afford it. The US, with the most expensive option, was within reach. Brazil and Saudi Arabia during those years also put significant funds into supporting their students and that made even more consumers able to afford expensive tuitions in the US (and elsewhere).
The economics have changed since 2020. While global student demand continues to grow, and this is important and little discussed, the rate of growth of new entrants into the market (those wishing to study abroad) is larger than the rate of growth of those families able to afford an international education. International education is a luxury good.
Reiterating Our Point: As the number of students desiring an international education grows, and given the fact that a growing number of them will have less money to spend on that education, the lesser expensive options are going to find more students. And your institution wants growth, so...
Repeating Your To Do: make a strategic decision about whether you want to:
- Offer less expensive options, OR
- Develop stronger value propositions to justify your higher cost.
Know that the second option puts you in a class with a great deal of competition for the students with more funding available (everyone wants them). You can’t fake it here. You have to offer real value (learning environment and career outcomes). Our slide decks offer you more food for thought as you assess your strategic options and what your leadership would find most compelling.
Pro Tip: Don't miss the online competition checker on slide 33 on the Career Success slide deck!
Download Intead’s PIE Live Slides
