Recruiting Intelligence

As you interact with international students, your job is to present your academic programs the best way you can and identify the right students who will be a good academic, personal and financial fit for your institution. 

Universities rarely go out of business or let's say out of existence. Maybe we should carefully add "so far" since we know that financial pressures are increasing dramatically. Competition is intensifying. Public funding has decreased and as we all know tuition has increased to a level where it is difficult to raise net tuition. Students and their parents are more reluctant or unable to take on the financial burden. I am a strong believer that education is one of the best investments young people can ever make. Financial pressures, among other reasons, have pushed many colleges to recruit more international students. Full paying students are rare in the United States, so adding a cohort of more or less full paying international students can make a difference.  As a result, we see many universities entering the international markets. And by the way, we don't mind since we enjoy working with colleges and it is helping us grow our business as well.

In addition to working for Intead as the Academic Advisor, I also work alongside high school students counseling and preparing them for the college application and admissions process. As an independent counselor I don't work for a specific high school or college. I am paid directly by my clients. I treat each family as if the students were my own children, eager to go into the world, but in need of advice to get to the next step. Because of my work with Intead I am incredibly interested in the great agent debate primarily because it affects our clients and their ability to recruit students, but more personally because, abroad, I would likely be assigned the title "agent." This post isn't intended to perpetuate the agent debate but given my unique perspective as one who works with students and parents, in the US and internationally, and who partners with universities, I have an ability to see these issues from numerous sides.

When it comes to international student recruitment and marketing there are many obvious factors that affect a student's interest in one institution over another. Things like (US News and World Report) rankings, cost/financial assistance, availability of desired programs, an international student presence, post-graduation opportunities. These factors all play into a student's decision making process. But there are other factors, which I'll call "soft" factors that also affect student's decision making. In building or maintaining recruitment and marketing efforts it's certainly worth your while to consider these factors.

Universities are getting hit by a tsunami of changes ranging from increased competition among universities as they expand traditional recruiting territories, stronger on-line competition from traditional and new competitive entries, rising tuition and student debt levels as well as a new marketing environment.  I am focusing on the latter change, which is getting less attention given the magnitude of the other factors. 

We are avid readers of all types of materials so we decided to share with our readers our staff bookshelves. Here is our first installment.  Please feel free to send us recommendations of books you found helpful and would suggest to your colleagues. 

Tuition discounting is a common way to attract students and or to make the university program affordable to potential students. Universities will encounter an even greater mindset challenge in respect to price as digital courses, MOOCs, and hybrid courses proliferate and become more acceptable as an education credential to employers.  At that time, pricing will be an even bigger issue since you are looking at the willingness to pay at all, not the level of payment. I speak from experience since I spent many years of my professional life in the digital content industry convincing consumers to pay for what was available for free elsewhere.  My experience was rooted in the social expression industry marketing paid online greeting cards, instant messenger content and mobile content, generally widely available for free. Nevertheless,we were able to show value and millions of consumers were willing to pay every year for that digital content. 

Branding and reach will be a major challenge and opportunity for MOOCS of existing public and non-profit universities.   First of all all, let's clarify that MOOCS are Massive Open Online Courses offered by a variety of for-profit-and non-profit academic institutions. 

For all those students of economics, yes PPP can stand for purchasing power parity, but I would like to use PPP as President and Parent Perspective. Why do I want to talk about that perspective?