Recruiting Intelligence

We consider the Australian university system an interesting microcosm worth studying. Like the U.S., they have a heavy contingent of international students, however, the range of institutions in Australia is much more homogeneous than the diverse education system found in the U.S.

We are experiencing a moment when two technologies and media trends have reached critical mass and are reinforcing each other. Social media and mobile technology are affecting society. Nielsen, a research firm, and Incite, a specialized consumer research consultancy, published the data compendium State of the Media: The Social Media Report 2012. We reviewed this report with both domestic and international student recruitment in mind.

The US Treasury Department is keeping an eye on education debt. Why? Most of the debt is guaranteed by the US government and will become a liability for the US taxpayers in case of default. But the recent report considers many more aspects than the implications of debt default. This Treasury report "The Economics of Higher Education" is a very concise and excellent analysis of the current trends. Figure 1 is the graphic representation of what could be the single biggest challenge for US academic institutions. Your customers, students and parents, cannot afford your product and services anymore. Is that where we are heading? We will try to summarize the situation. But before you read further, know that there are a lot of economic factors here with complicating inter-relationships. Some of our readers might just want to skip to the end where we explain why this stuff is important and what it means to our jobs.

CompleteCollege America offers some interesting perspective on why so many U.S. academic institutions are struggling to increase their graduation rates. In its report "Time is the Enemy" the group reveals how the demands of life are shifting priorities and hurting students' abilities to complete their education in a streamlined, timely fashion and earn the degree. The report is focused on public universities in 29 States where their Governors have set a priority of increasing college graduation rates. From the report, we note:

Recruiting international students is a global competition between different academic institutions, but also between different country destinations. The attractiveness of a destination is highly significant among international students' selection criteria - both in terms of which country and which location within that country. ICEF and i-Graduate conduct an annual survey of recruiting agents, which are a great proxy for the trends and demands in the market place for higher education. As chart 1 (below) shows, the U.S. continues to hold a lead in the attractiveness ahead of Canada, the U.K. and Australia.