Recruiting Intelligence

Your chief business officer is navigating rising personnel costs, deferred maintenance, technology investments, enrollment pressure, and limited institutional patience. International enrollment can be part of the answer. Yet many business officers still do not see it that way.

That disconnect was hard to miss at the NACUBO Annual Meeting. Unlike the international student-focused conferences your Intead team typically frequents, introductions at NACUBO often began with budgets, employee counts, bargaining units, and capital obligations. Students entered the conversation later. That observation is not a criticism. It is a reminder that business officers experience the institution through a different set of pressures -- and international leaders gain influence when they understand those pressures and that lens.

Your job: Get your CBO to see international as a revenue center (not a cost center).

Last week, we explained that international enrollment has always been a finance strategy. NACUBO 2026 reinforced the point. But the international office has more to offer the business office than a budget request. You can bring a disciplined revenue opportunity, a diversification strategy, and a clearer view of global market risk.

The finance conversation is already happening

Business officers are not waiting for international leaders to enter the room. They are already evaluating new programs, AI investments, auxiliary revenue, cost reductions, partnerships, and the return on nearly every institutional commitment. International enrollment belongs in the room where these conversations are happening.

Often, chief business officers lack information about global recruitment. But here’s the thing: when the international office brings CBOs that critical information, leaders often present the information in a form that does not answer the questions finance leaders are asking.

Market potential, brand visibility, student interest, and competitor activity matter. So do investment horizon, net tuition, program capacity, support costs, downside risk, and clarity on the points at which leadership can adjust course.

That distinction shaped the NACUBO session Intead presented with three institutional leaders: Dr. Jia-Yi Cheng-Levine, Dean of International Affairs and Global Engagement at College of the Canyons; Dr. Tamara T. Cunningham, Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Initiatives and Arts & Campus Activation at University of California, San Diego; and Dr. Balaji Krishnan, Vice Provost for International Affairs and Professor of Marketing at the University of Memphis. Our session, “International Enrollment Growth Options: Three Publics Share Business Perspectives,” examined how three very different public institutions evaluate international student-focused investments.

The range of institutions mattered. A community college, a major research university, and an urban public university do not share the same market position, operating model, or organizational culture. Yet each institution faces the same core questions: Where can internationalization create value that aligns with institutional priorities? How will global investments create financial resilience?

Read on…

Our regular readers know our devotion to cross-cultural intersections. Today we focus your attention on the financial value of global.

At the NACUBO 2026 Annual Meeting, I spent several days listening to chief business officers talk about the problems consuming higher education: rising personnel costs, deferred maintenance, enrollment pressure, AI investments, student success vs. access, the loss of institutional knowledge as long-serving leaders retire, oh, and changing Federal policies and guidelines.

Important to note: just 13% of CBOs say their institution understands per-student program and activity costs very well as reported in Inside Higher Ed from their annual survey of CBOs. There’s an opportunity for you right there.

You know what did not come up at the conference? International enrollment.

Nearly every concern being discussed at NACUBO pointed toward the need for new, sustainable revenue streams. While international enrollment cannot solve every financial challenge facing a college or university, it can become a meaningful part of the solution. And given today’s pressures, international is just as reliable as any other options for revenue-sustainability being evaluated by your leadership.

The larger point is easy to miss amid headlines about visa delays, geopolitics, and fluctuating student demand: international enrollment drives revenue. And that revenue opportunity is not well understood by your business officers. In fact, your CBO needs to hear from you, and this is important: they don’t know that they need to hear from you.

Read on...

How is your LinkedIn feed treating you lately? The algorithm has so finely curated mine at this point that I have a seemingly endless stream of academic news from a wide variety of “mostly” insightful posts. All good food for thought.

Mostly, I scroll and learn. Other times, I marvel at the patterns of folks trying (perhaps too hard) to get noticed. Sometimes I’m frustrated by the all-too-common story arc: take something well known and accepted as truth and call it into question. These posts often prompt reader engagement but act as just a surface-level contrarian view with little insight to truly add to the conversation. And that description is likely generous.

There are many of us in the field seeking insights to help us navigate these troubled times. Academia, the headlines seem to tell us, is under tremendous strain. True enough, and yet, a lot of those headlines end up being a whole lot of noise.

History shows us that troubled times come and go. Some institutions will fail to ride out the storm. Those that do make it to the other side sometimes prevail by what seems to be dumb luck. Others plan and adapt, giving their institution the best shot at future success. With so much noise in the system and so many distractions, planning and adapting require focus – a focus that helps you see the important signals separate from the noise. No easy task.

Two recent trips to DC for conferences (AIEA and WIEC) offered the desirable opportunity to meet with our community, maintain connections, share experiences, and noodle about what really is noise and what the truly important signals are. Really helpful, as so many in our field seem to spend a lot of time wringing their hands and falling into the rut of complaining. It’s easy to do when times are legitimately tough.

But that isn’t leadership.

And that is not planning and adapting.

Below we offer two valuable focus areas where we believe academic leaders can move the needle despite the turbulence AND two helpful resources in times like these.

Read on…

Is your leadership happy right now? How about your staff? 

We’re talking to you, enrollment leaders. The conversations we are having consistently are about managing up and managing down. The challenge of leading those around you through significant disruption. 

Your institutional leadership is rightfully worried about the enrollment future (domestic and international). Your staff are rightfully worried that the current climate is a doomsday scenario for academic institutions. There is a lot of job dissatisfaction going around.  

Still, truth is, there have always been times like these. The stressors may be different, the intensity a bit higher, but the anxiety and resulting need for focused work to solve problems are nothing new. 

Churn happens in every setting. Promotions, departures, budget realignment, team and department consolidation.

Disruptive, yes, but hardly unprecedented – a common cycle typically prompted by fiscal changes and then the disruptions ripple out from there. 

And yet, change rarely feels routine. Especially at the scale we are experiencing right now.

Still, your programs need promotion, your Deans have their own priorities, and everyone knows that your important leadership chair is about to turn over (you know the one, right?).

What is an enrollment team to do? Do you launch a new marketing campaign now, or wait? What if today’s A, B, and C priorities become tomorrow’s D, E, and F because the new leader coming in 4 or 5 months will have their own ideas.

And what happens in the meantime as you try to sort it all out? Stasis.  

So often, teams sit on their hard-won budgets, waiting for stability and clarity. An approach, for sure, but not a good one. Doing nothing isn’t leadership (too blunt?) – and doing nothing will do nothing to advance your yield or deliver your next class.

We all know there are legitimate excuses for not hitting your numbers. Yet we see this stasis mode all the time. And yet...

What your enrollment team needs in times of ambiguity: smart bets and clarity. 

SIOs (Senior International Officers) have for years been understaffed and under resourced. As vetting of international students ratchets up and new policies continue to challenge immigration and inclusion, SIOs wonder: what’s next?  

What we know is that our SIO colleagues have been receiving an abundance of well-intended, and often unwanted, emails of concern from their academic peers across the campus. Administrators, deans, and faculty are coming out of the woodwork, asking how the SIO and the institution as a whole are supporting international students. Sidebar comments may also raise concerns about how the institution will meet our future international student enrollment targets.  

SIOs often view the sudden and intense interest in all things international as unnecessary and intrusive. As the questions stream into your inbox your knee jerk reaction may be to push them off.

I can spend all day writing substantiative responses to each of your inquiries. Or I can do my job. Frankly, I’d prefer you simply stayed out of it. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.  

So many SIOs and others working with international students tell us the broader campus community lacks meaningful insight into the role internationalization plays across their institutions. Maybe you and I have had this very conversation. It’s quite likely. It comes up a lot.

The ideal of internationalization is of course generally understood. But actually achieving a strategic, coordinated framework that integrates globally oriented policies and programs across departments, well that is a different story. The level of understanding and commitment certainly varies.

Sure, the international recruitment team gets it. And the international student services group, too. But how is internationalization playing out in housing, nutritional services, career services, IT, marketing, and across faculty programs? Every department has a role in achieving the mission for the benefit of all. Not just the international students! That's kinda the point, right? The internationalization mission is institution-wide for a reason.

We get that championing this can feel like an uphill battle.

Yet we know it’s worth the fight. The folks we talk to are not ones for lip service.

At the upcoming Association of Governing Boards (AGB) conference in San Diego, Edu trustees and presidents will be talking about all thingsinstitutional policy and process and we are looking forward to presenting our internationalization perspective to those attending. We want to empower leadership to offer guidance and insight into the intersectionality (dare we use that word! We're looking at you, Florida) of this highly educational and career-boosting aspect of university life.

We thank AGB for recognizing the value of this topic and for giving us the opportunity to present a holistic picture of what internationalization is and offer perspectives that will help trustees support a plan for progress with a clear focus on student-first initiatives.

Intead has the honor to be presenting to this distinguished crowd alongside Brad Farnsworth from Fox Hollow Advisory (former ACE VP) and Dr. Gretchen Bataille from GMB Consulting (former president of the U of North Texas among other amazing higher ed roles).

Know this: From the dais, we will be channeling all the concerns you’ve raised and offering insights these university leaders need to guide their institutions’ internationalization efforts. Your concerns and priorities are our North Star.

Read on to learn more about the program and the opportunity to share your ideas before we head to the conference…

At some point when we listen to stories of successful initiatives, part of that story almost always includes a line like this: "Well, we were really curious about..."

How is your curiosity quotient these days?

Success emerges from teams that want to know and understand. That desire, and how well you act on and fulfill that desire speaks to the drive to succeed.

In a few weeks, a select few of your peers will gather with leaders in our field of international recruiting for a full-day, hands-on workshop to seriously get stuff done. Dubbed “Succeeding in the New Student Landscape,” this event is designed to help you diversify and build your global student recruitment plan for 2023 and beyond. This event offers small-batch, intensely focused conversations to apply the latest data, trends, perspectives, and best practices to your institution's current state. 

We are keeping it small so that every participant gets the kind of attention that addresses the immediate and long-term thinking needed for each unique institution.

The details:

• December 13, 2022 (falling conveniently between the AIRC and ICEF conferences)
• On campus at San Diego State University
• 19 industry thought leaders as your faculty and keynote speakers
• Two tracks: Get It Done (Track I), Leadership (Track II)
• Two on-target keynotes: Social Justice as it relates to International Student Attraction (lunch), and Chinese Student Influencers Today (dinner)
• Cost (inclusive of all meals): $350 

Ready to learn more? Read on for our list of speakers, moderators, and full-day breakdown. We hope to see you there! There are still spaces left as of this blog posting date.

I need this couch moved to our second floor sitting area. Clearly this is going to take both of us working in tandem.

“You want to go up first?” You ask.

“Sure,” I say.

I reach for the bottom and the side. You find your handholds as well. We lift in unison.

I need to adjust my grip as I navigate the first stair. You feel the couch shift and adjust accordingly. We make eye contact over the bulky thing and nod to each other. We are innovating as we climb and adapt to the shift in weight and the angle of the couch with each step.

Innovating together in real time. Communicating with words and body language. Collaborating on our way to achieving our goal.

I have to give credit to my friend and colleague Dr. Michael Mascolo, Professor of Psychology at Merrimack College for this metaphor I’m employing. During a recent conversation with Mike, I was making observations about the debate over remote vs. in-office collaboration. We’ve all seen it: the loss of innovation and spontaneous learning when the whole team is working remotely.

As much as we want to leave the commute behind, put a quick load of laundry in after the 9:30am Zoom call is done, even bake a banana bread mid-day, because, why not? Look, I’ve been running virtual teams since 1993 (mmm hmmm, that’s when I started consulting, dinosaur that I am). The power and efficiency of remote work is undeniable.

And yet, and yet…also undeniable is the loss of opportunity for us to learn from each other (even at my dinosauric age, I am learning from the team here). What we all need is much, much more face-to-face interaction – from the fresh graduates entering the workforce to those with decades of experience. We grow and learn together in different ways. We innovate in real time.

Over the past few years, we’ve been growing significantly here at Intead. More universities, high schools, rising edtechs, and established academic providers have been tapping our expertise. So, we’ve been hiring more talent. The talent market has shifted and there are a lot of folks looking for greener pastures right now.

Read on for a bit of perspective that I am surprised far too few current job applicants seem to grasp...

When Vice President Harris said, “Your nation is SO proud of you,” to a group of 20 Frederick Douglass Global Fellows, you could not have found more inspired university students anywhere. Absolutely anywhere. Their eyes said it all.

International education speaks deeply to all of us. And yet it remains inaccessible to so many. What we know is that roughly 6% of US students participating in study abroad are Black. How to make this privilege and opportunity available to many, many more?

Intead’s international team has been deeply honored to work alongside our colleagues at CIEE on an inspired and inspiring project – a concerted effort to bring the opportunity of international education, experiential education, to more BIPOC students. In just a few months, we’ve watched this effort draw pledges from dozens of university presidents who have matched CIEE’s scholarship funding to allow more students to experience the power of international education.

As the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship barrels forward with applications for 2022 now open, we bring you this bottle of inspiration — a 5 minute film featuring the perspectives and experiences of the 2021 cohort. This will lift your spirits and get you thinking.

To hear Dr. Roslyn Clark Artis, president of Benedict College tell it, this program offers a lot and demands just as much back from the students who participate. Frederick Douglass Global Fellows and Scholars have a responsibility to share what they’ve learned as they become leaders in their chosen fields. To be, as one Frederick Douglass Global Fellow put it, “the first of many.”

We are gratified to see university presidents not just encouraging, but taking real action — signing up to catalyze their DEI initiatives in a valuable and visible way through this program. Will your institution be next? 

Read on to watch the film and hear from these future change-makers.