Recruiting Intelligence

News of international student visa’s being revoked and stock market gyrations is all consuming. And rightly so. The White House seems hellbent on sowing chaos on as many levels as possible. In our world of higher ed enrollment and internationalization, international students are looking over their shoulders, unsure of what will happen next. Unfortunately, in the near term, unpredictability is the name of the game and every university administrator’s list of top priorities changes by the day (or the hour).

Harkening back to the stress levels our academic administrators and students experienced during the Covid-19 Pandemic. 

It’s enough to make you want to just turn it all off, hop a flight to Florida, and kick back under a beach umbrella on the sunny shores of the Gulf of America...right?!?  

Sad humor aside, we focus on providing global educational experiences, protecting students from harm, and playing exhausting defense to the chaotic shifts in policies as best we can. And, at the same, time we are playing offense for our institutions. How do we move forward? How do we fortify our international student programs even as our students feel shaken and ask legitimate questions about how and if they can continue to pursue a US education?

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  

• Look for us at NAFSA in May, NACUBO and APLU in June, and NACAC in September. Let us know  if you want to connect at these events.

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

With all the shifting campus priorities and endless breaking news reports, we take our role seriously as a condenser of information and a producer of insights on all things enrollment management. If we are doing our job, we are consistently additive to your work. Many of you likely missed some of our posts this past quarter (we understand!). So today, we offer a summary of the news we shared in Q1 ’25 with links to the articles and resources.   

You’ll find perspective on:  

• 3 Things to do now, despite the enrollment chaos  
• AI tools admissions teams will love  
• How to spot and fix admissions pain points  
• AIRC & AIEA conference insights 
  
• How WPI students are ideating systems to address student mental health  

As an added bonus, at the end of the post, we offer a link to our uplifting April Fools Day post that caught more than a few people off guard. We all need a reminder of the fun life can offer now and again. This one is worth the click. A quick read for a lasting smile.

This quarterly wrap-up is a bit shorter than those in the past per our recent switch to posting every other week - our content optimization guided by our analysis of our reader data. Let us know if our new cadence is working for you.   

Read on…  

Five years from now what will you be glad you did right now, this year? 

IIE here in the US and other prognosticators across the pond who track student mobility have predicted the number of international students in the US and around the world could double by 2030. Some projections suggest upwards of 10M or more globally. We’re not placing any bets on that figure. However… 

We’re optimistic about international student numbers and the opportunities ahead in higher education. We’re not banking on 10M+ in the next few years. That’s a bit of a stretch by our measure. But continued growth will come and the question is whether your institution is psychologically capable of weathering the storms and building for the future, or bureaucratically paralyzed and unable to capitalize on the opportunities ahead.  

Said simply: Resilient individuals and businesses adapt, leverage their strengths, and pursue opportunities to grow. 

Pro Tip: Your academic leadership will value reading this post. (Share button below)

What you do in the coming year will set the stage for the benefits you reap five years from now. Sit on your hands due to fear of the ambiguity that surrounds us, and all those who are acting now will be miles in front of you in 2030. Miles.   

Below we offer three specific areas where we think smart institutions and academic leaders will focus their attention in the years ahead to capitalize on future growth opportunities. How many of the three do you think you can help your institution address? 

Some context: Back in the day, our industry’s powerhouse forecasters were looking at the global growth of students seeking a foreign education from 2010 through 2016 and said with absolute confidence that there would be 8M+ international students globally by 2020. Maybe you were sitting with me in those conference presentations? Had trends continued on pace, that would have been true. Emphasis on “had trends continued on pace.” 

Instead, global factors combined with the US Muslim ban (Trump 1.0) were followed by a global pandemic (COVID 19). Those student numbers (8M+) have yet to pan out. But significant growth has happened - just 20% shy of the projection by 2020. (UNESCO reports 6.4M students globally studying in a country other than their own that year and we are at about 7M today.) Trend predictions are complicated by so many factors. Some might say predictions are truly unpredictable ; -)

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  

• Look for us at ASU+GSV next week, and NAFSA in May. Let us know  if you want to connect at these events.

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

Here's the thing: there are some human behaviors and economic factors that we feel very confident about. And that helps us understand the world and get a strong sense of what is likely coming our way in the years ahead.  

Reality: The US is now grappling with Trump 2.0, which is full of bluster and chaos-inducing pronouncements equivalent to watching an over-the-top World Wrestling Federation pre-fight drama. It’s all designed to draw attention and ramp up excitement for a spectacle. Often, there’s no substance to the bluster, though it consistently delivers pain. 

This drama coming from the US White House makes predictions all the more challenging. You need to push past all the obfuscating dry ice smoke machine billows to get at baseline reality. 

So yes, despite the chaos surrounding US policies and politics and how that will play out around the world, we have reason to believe international student numbers will rise over time similar to our confidence that the stock market will rise over time. We can’t tell you if the market will be up or down tomorrow or next year, but longitudinally, stocks have gone up since the market’s founding, and international student mobility has gone up as international travel has become more accessible. 

Consider this: In 1970, there were 310M airline passengers globally according to the World Bank. In 2024 the figure was 5.2B according to the International Air Transport Association. That’s an indicator of accessibility. Important to note, those figures include domestic and international flyers. 

Our belief in future growth of international student mobility primarily comes down to basic consumer (student) behavior trends, like increased usage of international flights (accessibility).  

Making the Accessible Visible 

Hailing from Hyderabad, Satya Nadella, current CEO and Chairman of Microsoft, earned his engineering master's degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1990 and his MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business in 1997. On the minds of nearly every Indian engineering student today: “If he could do it, so can I.” A lure as strong as it is old.  

With the rise of social media since 2010, success stories have proliferated in ways the world has never seen before. Basic human behavior: communicating success builds desire among others (word of mouth referrals drive sales).  

Among all those who have not risen to the top of Microsoft, there are millions of former international students who have carved out careers and influential positions, inspiring and encouraging future generations to follow in their footsteps. And hear us when we tell you that your prospective international students are looking for the proven path forward. Without overpromising, your institution needs to tell that story and build confidence in that future. 

A graduate student from India attending a private New England university recently told our staff how searching for (and making real connections with) alumni and current students on LinkedIn is what landed her on campus in the US. In her words, she appreciated but generally bypassed the university’s marketing and contacted other international students who had been there, done that. Their stories convinced her to enroll in the institution. Case in point: basic human behavior tied to the advent of internet communication. 

What we know: A student who graduated just a few years ago and is now a manager at a major company is immediately relatable to prospective applicants (much more tangible to them than their aspirations to run Microsoft someday). These conversations make the journey feel more attainable.

So, when international alumni share their experiences—whether through personal networks, mentorship, or social media—they reinforce the appeal of studying in the US (or any other country that contributed to their success).  

Considering how well your institution leverages its international alumni? Find customized perspective here. 

While we believe word-of-mouth marketing will play a role in future international student enrollment growth, there are other factors working in our industry’s favor – namely how institutions are poised to react to the changing market and the pace at which these changes are implemented on your campus. You may be surprised to learn our take on the opportunities ahead. Read on…

As student recruitment consultants, higher ed institutions ask us to focus on a range of pain points. We see an increasing number of institutions, driven by global competition, evolving markets, economic pressures, changing immigration policies, and more, seeking strategic realignment of their admissions and enrollment processes. The evolving ed tech marketplace brings new tools and AI to the process adding to the intrigue. Could technology be the critical player to winning the game? Sometimes, yes.  

It was no surprise to us when international enrollment officers packed the room for a presentation on Admission Process Analysis during the most recent AIRC conference. The conversation was led by Steven Boyd of Quinnipiac University and Intead’s Chief Strategy Officer Britt Godshalk who spoke directly to concerns we are hearing straight from enrollment staff. Concerns like: 

• “We need to know where our best markets are. We have an incredibly high volume of applicants with a very small yield.” 
• “Sometimes we have enough applications. But how do we make sure students actually enroll?”
• “I need to figure out how to move from our current enrollment plateau. And I feel like we’ve tried everything.” 
• “We have a communications coordinator specifically for admissions and I don’t know how to use him."

Sound familiar? You could write a book with the number of times we hear comments like these. In fact, our friend and colleague Dr. David D Maria, SIO and Vice Provost for International Education at UMBC, literally did (find his Achieving More with Less: Lean Management in International Student Office in the NAFSA bookstore – highly recommend).  

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  

• AIEA in March, ASU+GSV in April, and NAFSA in May. We'll be presenting our latest findings with colleagues from Chronicle of Higher Ed, IIE, AIEA, University of Tulsa, University of Memphis, Northeastern, and others. Let us know  if you want to connect at of those two events. 

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

Relying on our experience working with a wide range of institutions, public and private, over the past 15 years (and the guidance from David’s book), we have helped admissions leaders identify the admissions pain points that drive students away rather than drawing them closer in. Importantly, this fascinating day-long exercise uncovers opportunities to fix the problems and the improvement measures to track results. Ah yes, some good news. 

Process mapping is a simple idea on the face of it. Like any problem-solving session addressing a complex, multi-layered process, the key to success is getting the right people in the right room to wrestle the right questions. We’re sure you know just what we mean. Practical to downright critical cross-departmental conversations are too few and far between.   

IT, Marketing, Enrollment, Admissions, and faculty (at the graduate level) all play a role. Credential evaluation always comes up as a pain point (more on that in just a bit). Yet, when institutions bring all stakeholders together for one full day to critically examine how their roles interconnect, the clarity is remarkable. We’ve seen even the most efficient teams benefit. And by the end, everyone has a new appreciation for sticky notes and our whiteboard is filled with sound ideas, big and small. 

The litmus test for us is always this: at the end of the day, does everyone see a clear, achievable path forward? From the clear immediate wins to the more time-intensive improvements, a shared vision for a more efficient process will result. That’s the point of process mapping. Read on…  

Grabbed my briefcase, checked the full-length mirror. Yup, got my badge. Opened the hotel room door dashing to get to the AIRC conference networking breakfast buffet. Eyeroll and back into the room. Forgot to brush my teeth. 

Conferencing tip for my colleagues: If, in your morning rush, you forget to brush your teeth, remove your conference badge and lanyard before you brush. The physics of the lanyard and badge during the lean over sink, rinse and spit process…well, you can imagine. 

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  

• AIEA in March, ASU+GSV in April, and NAFSA in May. We'll be presenting our latest findings with colleagues at AIEA and NAFSA. Let us know  if you want to connect at either of those two events. 

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

The AIRC 2024 Conference produced exactly what it was supposed to produce at the end of a pretty arduous year. It’s all about the people in the room, their knowledge and expertise, and the culture of the gathering. AIRC achieves all of the right elements, repeatedly. The information we gathered will help us perform better in 2025 and beyond. 

The Intead team showed up in force. We presented our daylong Global Marketing Workshop as well as conference sessions focused on budgeting for international student recruitment and an approach to streamlining admissions processes to improve the overall intake. All very practical stuff.  

Institutions so often fail to calculate the full cost of IEM, leaving their international recruitment teams to a minimalist (at best) budget. An increasingly important consideration as demand for an international education grows in the coming years: How will changing student purchasing power influence your messaging? Can you reduce students’ total cost for a degree? 

Read on to download our AIRC presentations.  

Here we go again. Entering a new year with a certain trepidation. Recent headlines warning of mass deportations and reeking of transnational skepticism harken back to a pre-pandemic era of not so long ago. The difference this time: we come prepared. This is a road we’ve traveled. So, lace up your long-distance sneakers and let’s get going. 

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  

• AIEA in March and NAFSA in May, we'll be presenting our latest findings at both. Want to connect at either event? Let us know.

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

Despite our wariness of upcoming US, UK, Australian, and Canadian policy changes that are sure to impact our international student community, we are looking forward to 2025. We will find our way forward even despite the incoming US administration's often petty, often chaotic, and consistently unpredictable management style. Sigh.

One important change to how we move forward here at Intead, a resolution if you will, is an adjustment to the cadence of this blog.  

We’ve been publishing Recruiting Intelligence since 2012, on a weekly basis. Our goal has always been, and continues to be, to provide you with deep industry insights that are practical, highly actionable, and meaningful to your day-to-day work. We report on markets, tech tools, recruitment trends, marketing strategy, you name it. If it can improve your enrollment management, we are researching and writing about it.  

This year we are shifting our output slightly by moving to an every-other-week schedule. This shift in cadence is born out of our digital strategy analysis and watching your engagement. Turns out, given our long form content format, not everyone has time to read our posts every week!!!   

OK, obvious, right? What this means in simple terms: our efforts to disseminate meaningful content to as many people as possible is not as effective as it could be with each post. 

By shifting to an every-other-week schedule, our digital team can use social channels more effectively to promote the content we produce. There will be more time for the social algorithms and your clicks and shares to do their work.  

So, long story short, you will still see our longer form musings here, and an increasing presence on social media as we hold true to our goal of providing useful content to industry insiders. Speaking of, we are connected on LinkedIn, right? If not, follow us here.  

In the meantime, a quick look back at 2024 through this blog’s top 10 posts as chosen by you, our readers. We were not at all surprised at #1. Read on…  

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. 

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

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 oncareer 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.

We’re going to state the obvious and break it down. Because it seems some of your colleagues may need to hear this. Better coming from us than you.  Helpful perspective: historical data tell us that 30% to 40% of all US institutions see declining international enrollment in any given year. So, for your consideration...

First: If you are not seeing the enrollment results you want, something must change to produce new outcomes. (Someone wise has said: insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results. Apparently, it wasn’t Albert Einstein. Nevertheless, it holds up).   

Second: If you want to increase university enrollment fast, you’re going to have to put real money into the process. You’re likely going to continue doing what you already do because even though you are seeing diminishing returns, you can’t afford to lose them. So, new funds must be added to the existing budget.   

All obvious, right? Well, it seems folks need to hear it. But we have more to share here to help you get the numbers ... 

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  

• AIRC, Seattle-Bellevue, Washington, Dec. 4-7, 2024. Our team is here now with 3 powerful sessions on budgeting, pathways, and streamlining admissions processes. Come find us. 
• AIEA, Houston, Texas, March 02-05, 2025
• NAFSA Annual, San Diego, CA,  May 27-30, 2025

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

Third: If you cannot access additional funds, you will have to cut something you are currently doing and reallocate those funds. If your leadership is of the innovative risk-taker mindset, you can stop doing some of your current, less effective things and put that money into the new thing. Your stronger results will be slow to materialize, and your leadership needs to stay the course (not pull the funding) when fabulous new results do not magically appear in year one. To maintain internal support, you must track your activity and report on the results along the way.

What you want with all the tracking is your ability to provide your leadership with the confidence that there is learning and progress going on that will lead to stronger results in the next couple of years. Know that your leadership is facing down a whole lot of criticism including daggers from across campus trying to remove your funding. The dagger throwers are expecting your plans to fail.  

Fourth (getting into the details): You have options when you think about innovating to produce new, stronger results. We review 12 primary recruiting options when we run our conference workshops on student recruiting. Today we take a quick look at each tactic with a careful eye on cost and flexibility.

Read on for our 12 recruitment option tips and perspective… 

The US continues to be a top destination for international students. As other anglophile countries find new reasons to limit their student intake (we’re looking at you Canada, Australia, and UK), there is still competition for student attention. Now is no time for US institutions to rest on their laurels.  

The macro numbers around student mobility are always interesting. But the fact is that each institution has tremendous potential in any given market if it plays its unique cards well.  

It starts with market intelligence, understanding your consumer, their motivations, influencers, and how the unique attributes of your institution relate to those consumer insights. There are questions you and your recruitment team are asking: 

• Are you reaching the right prospective international students?  

• Are your markets diversified enough? Targeted enough?  

• How do you know if you are doing all of this well? 

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  
- NAFSA Region XI, Hartford, Connecticut, Oct. 27-29, 2024
- PIE Live North America, Boston, MA, Nov. 19-20, 2024
- AIRC, Seattle-Bellevue, Washington, Dec. 04-07, 2024 -- including our pre-conference global marketing workshop. A full day of Intead global intel (lunch included ; -). Details here. 

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

Over the past year we’ve offered insights into regions we think are well worth watching on 3 continents – China, India, Vietnam, Tanzania, Guyana. Each of these countries offers something interesting for international student recruiters to think about. All won’t be right for every institution, but each are right for some.  

Read on to understand how we’re thinking about these markets and to link to our more in-depth articles each one.  

The plight of your visa-seeking international grads may best be summed up in this quote, “Given the choice between a prostate exam and sponsoring a work visa, hiring managers will probably choose the former.”  

Zeke Hernandez, a Wharton School professor and author of The Truth About Immigration, gave us a good chuckle with that one when we read it in an August 2024 issue of The Economist. It’s funny because it’s true as the meme goes.   

In an analysis done by ed tech company F1 Hire, only 1.6% of the 1.5 million job postings analyzed had sponsorship-friendly language in the job description. This research was part of Intead’s Connecting Dots report How International Students are Finding US Jobs, published in May. If you haven’t seen it yet, find it here. Our analysis of US Department of Labor data and proprietary data from F1 Hire offers job market insights you won’t find anywhere else. 

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  
- NAFSA Region XI, Hartford, Connecticut, Oct. 27-29, 2024
- PIE Live North America, Boston, MA, Nov. 19-20, 2024
- AIRC, Seattle-Bellevue, Washington, Dec. 4-7 -- including our pre-conference global marketing workshop. A full day of Intead global intel (lunch included ; -). Details here. 

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

Understanding career pathways for international students is an increasingly necessary topic for those of us who advocate for and work on behalf of this valuable and important student population. In fact, 84% of international students cite career advancement as their top motivator for studying abroad. And >99% believe it’s why their families want them to study abroad (source: Intead’s Know Your Neighborhood 2024 report).  

But it’s so much more than that. These bright, highly skilled students are a crucial part of the economy. As pointed out in a recent Economist article, immigrants account for 14% of the US population yet are responsible for 36% of the country’s total innovation. It makes sense why. They bring not just knowledge, but new ideas, perspectives, and networks that help shape their work environments. Global perspectives, ideas, and connections benefit everyone.  

At Intead we need only look up from our own desks to see the positive impact of multinational teams (and to our case studies for bottom-line proof of results). We expect many of you are fortunate enough to work in similar environments. We are all better for it as individuals. Our work product is stronger as well.  

The Biden Administration offered a bit of good news for international students earlier this year when they issued guidance making it easier for foreign graduates of American academic institutions to get work authorization. But it’s a small gesture that will likely have minimal impact. Still, we welcome the forward motion. 

Read on for ways your institution can improve career connections for your students... 

Between NAFSA, GMAC, EdUSA Forum, and keeping up with our client deliverables, our Q3 dance cards were full. And we are grateful. Connecting with colleagues like you in person always gives us a boost. We had a lot of press coverage about our very cool market research as well.

Were you able to follow all that? 

If you were similarly occupied (maybe US election news had you distracted?), you may have missed a Recruiting Intelligence post or two. No problem. We’ve got you covered. In this quarterly wrap-up post, find quick links to our action-orient tips on: 

• How and when to use LinkedIn for student recruitment 
• Using English Language Programs’ enrollment indicators 
• Making the most of your international recruiting trips 
• Insights into Sub-Saharan Africa 
• Key takeaways from our conference presentations: NAFSA, GMAC, and EdUSA Forum 
• And more! 

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  
- NAFSA Region XI, Hartford, CT, Oct. 27-29, 2024
- PIE Live North America, Boston, MA, Nov. 19-20, 2024
- AIRC, Seattle-Bellevue, WA, Dec. 4-7 -- including our pre-conference global marketing workshop. A full day of Intead global intel (lunch included ; -). Details here. 

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 825+ articles, slide decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

Ready to catch up on Q3 news? Read on…