Recruiting Intelligence

The buzz topic at NAFSA XI 2024: creative ways to engage students. The primary focus being study abroad during this 3-day event in Hartford, CT in October. The Intead team was there in force gathering intel and sharing our latest data-informed thinking. 

Small industry events like NAFSA’s regional conferences are such a great way to connect with peers to think through the nuts and bolts of what works and what doesn’t on issues we’re all facing. So many conversations on how to raise on-campus awareness of study abroad programs, including how to counter student “why bother” attitudes (all too common).   

Another buzz topic: faculty and cross-departmental collaboration. We are all still struggling to break down silos and build collaborative cultures on campus.   

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  
- PIE Live North America, Boston, MA, Nov. 19-20, 2024. Two informative sessions: Dissecting the latest IIE data and a deep dive into international student career outcome data with Babson College.
- 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 decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

A consistent drumbeat throughout the NAFSA Region XI conference was something we as marketers intuitively know all too well: authenticity is huge among this generation. Basic example of how this plays out: polished marketing videos vs. iPhone produced TikTok vibes.  

Obvious across-the-board guidance whether you’re working on recruitment or retention, undergrad or grad. Since so many NAFSA Regional conference attendees are in student services roles, the discussions were largely around how authenticity boosts study abroad numbers. It works – when implemented. 

Simple as it seems, meaningful communication gets lost in the name of strategic marketing all the time. Institutions are so busy finding best-fit students and telling them things, it’s easy to forget to meet them where they are by listening to them before you start telling them things. 

Consider your students who’ve never thought of study abroad as a viable option for their own academic journeys. Is your student union flyer even registering with them? Are your Instagram Reels connecting?   

The real-world examples of success discussed at the conference addressed students’ need for explicit communication that shows them why and how study abroad is actually an option for them. They need their professors, alumni, and fellow classmates to talk about the benefits of studying abroad. They need details on cost upfront, including scholarships or grants available. They need to hear about the more affordable study abroad programs. They need to connect your study abroad programs to their personal investment in their own futures – the future they are working toward on campus right now. They need to know they won't lose out on all the social events on campus because they will be engaging in new and exciting social events abroad.

New ideas? No. Achievable in a better way? Yes.

So much easier to see (and prioritize) the path forward after a few days with like-minded peers. (Thank you, NAFSA!).

Other topics we had a lot of fun discussing include value mapping for improved admissions processes and how to identify useful data to support your recruitment efforts. Action-oriented conversations led by outstanding presenters. Big thanks to Corey Blackmar of Emerson College, Steven Boyd of Quinnipiac University, and Khald Aboalayon of Clark University for sharing the stage with us. 

One final shout out. This one’s for our number one Director of Marketing Analytics Iliana Joaquin. She is the new NAFSA XI IEM Knowledge Center Regional Rep. We are thrilled to let NAFSA borrow her amazing skills in 2025. Congrats Iliana!  

Below we bring a bit of the conference to you. Read on to download our presentation decks with practical tips and insights:  

• Creating a Campus Culture for Study Abroad 
• Admission Process Analysis: Value Mapping and Improvement 
• Wait, So How Did You Get This Data? 

The opening plenary at the 76th CIEE conference drew a crowd earlier this month in Paris. No wonder. With a jaw-dropping panel representing Elon, Arizona State, Northeastern, and Dean College, the discussion presented some rare gems. 

The goal: set the conference off on the right foot. Get everyone thinking deeply about how international experiences can reach more students. 

The crowd clearly held the belief that a global education holds the promise of a brighter future. The proof was simply in the stories told by leaders in academia, government, and pretty much every institution in attendance. Those with international experience as a student spoke of the indelible mark that it had on their life and career. The global experiences changed their views of the world and shaped their decisions about how they would participate in it. No doubt, many of you can relate. 

Opportunities to Meet In Person 

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations and we hope you can join us. 

• AIRC Annual Conference – we’ll be offering our full-day digital marketing workshop here In Phoenix, Dec 6-9, 2023 
• ICEF North America Workshop in Miami, Dec 11-13, 2023 

Let us know if you’ll come share a cup of coffee and a conversation about all things global and digital (info@intead.com) 

Why we work so hard at this and gather to define the path forward: we are looking to make international education more accessible for current and future students. And we want those experiences to be deeply rewarding. We need to be sure the programs have a solid curriculum, strong faculty leadership, and finely tuned logistics and support services.  

We can only take on so much at one time. What I heard as the specific foci at this CIEE gathering: 

• Clarify the steps to improving broad student access.  
• Increase our capacity to provide student mental health support services.  
• Focus efforts on environmental sustainability initiatives. 

The conference provided a foundation for robust, challenging discussions among study abroad leadership and all the many practitioners in the room. And these talks will continue. Fortunately, the resources to do the work, to make these ideas meaningful, not just esoteric, are in place.  

The discussions embraced big visionary approaches (can we foster greater employer engagement in internationalization?) and concrete touch points (can we provide each traveling student with a sustainability cookbook customized to each of 30+ destination cities?). The ideas shared and evaluated poured forth.  

Granted, there is never enough money to do all we want to do. But roughly 75 years ago, a poignant point in time following World War II, many smart and good people got together to launch global initiatives, including the United Nations, IIE, the Fulbright program, NATO, WHO, IMF, the World Bank, and CIEE to name just a few of the most prominent efforts to bridge cultures globally. 

I had the great privilege of moderating the opening plenary and speaking at length with: 

• Kenneth Elmore, J.D., president of Dean College 
• Jennifer Malerich, Ph.D., assistant vice provost of academic and global engagement for Arizona State University 

• Rebecca Kohn, Ph.D., provost and vice president of academic affairs for Elon University 
• Amy Stevens, Ph.D., vice chancellor of global experiential pathways for Northeastern University 

I wish all of you could have been there. That’s why today I’m sharing with you a few of my personal notes from talks with these industry leaders and other observations from the 3-day event. It’s a quick read, but one I know will spur ideas and get your wheels turning. Read on… 

The near-term forecast: sunnier skies for international student recruitment.

That’s according to the “Spring 2022 Snapshot on International Educational Exchange” by the Institute of International Education (IIE). The long-running Snapshot series is part of IIE’s efforts to map the effects of notable current events on international educational exchange to and from the US. This latest release, which analyzes a full 559 institutions that completed the survey, includes the effect of COVID-19 as well as the war in Ukraine.

Look, every time the US suffers a drop due to anti-immigrant rhetoric out of Washington, policies that hinder work opportunities for international graduates, or less controllable obstacles like pandemics and international conflicts, each time these serious situations emerge, there are prognosticators predicting the end of US recruiting strength.

Every year, for more than a decade, at least one-third of US institutions saw a decline in their international student population. During the pandemic, that pain was spread much, much further, and deeper.

The past decade has been full of ups and downs and the US continues to find a welcome international audience despite it all. Opportunities for growth are out there for those institutions willing to put in the effort and make the investment.

Four key findings surfaced from the latest IIE report:

• #1 Most international students studied in person on US campuses in spring 2022.
• #2 US colleges and universities are supporting international students during the Ukraine crisis.
• #3 International student applications continued to increase.
• #4 In-person study abroad rebounds.

Offering up a few road signs to point you in the right direction

A report is just a report until you put it to use. Read on to better understand how you can use the survey to bolster your recruitment strategy this fall as well as learn what others are already doing.

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. 

This is our third and final installment in our series about international student recruitment opportunities in Africa. In case you haven’t been with us since the beginning, Part 1 was about the emerging online learning opportunities in Africa, and Part 2 was about African student mobility and study in the U.S.

This week, we are focusing on international study within the continent and how some countries are trying to harness that student mobility for their own gain. With any marketing plan it is always important to understand the larger environment and other consumer options.

Our Intead Plus BookShelf Subscription gives you access to our Global Marketing Worksheets helping you plan your approach to entering any new region or market. We use these worksheets when giving our workshops at various conferences to help you create realistic budgets and timelines, targeted messaging and overall marketing plans. 

As we noted in Parts 1 & 2 of this series, foreign investment and economies are on the rise in Africa, along with the population. The continent is expected to have 2.8 billion people by 2060, roughly 40 percent of the world’s total.

Those people will need to be educated, and the rise in demand for tertiary education has begun. The sub-Saharan enrollment from 1970-2013 grew 4.3 percent annually, as compared to the global average of 2.8 percent, according to the World Bank.

Many African students are turning to universities outside of their home countries—and many of them are still staying within the continent. Let’s look at what is going on and what you need to know about China and India before you start recruiting from Africa…

(Read on)

Last week, we spoke about the emerging online learning opportunities in Africa.  This week, we are focusing on international study, both areas that have expanded because of a college-aged population boom across the African continent.

Foreign investment and economies are on the rise along with the population. The continent is expected to have 2.8 billion people by 2060, roughly 40 percent of the world’s total.

Those people will need to be educated, and the rise in demand for tertiary education has begun. The sub-Saharan enrollment from 1970-2013 grew 4.3 percent annually, as compared to the global average of 2.8 percent, according to the World Bank.

U.S. universities have made large efforts to recruit international students in Asia, but as mentioned in our 2016 blog series on recruiting students from Africa, African nations are a boon of potential students that have barely been touched with marketing efforts.

Currently, the continent has a population of 1.2 billion people, 60 percent of which are under the age of 25 (720 million). To really drive that number home, 29 out of 30 of the world’s countries with the youngest populations are in Africa.

If you didn’t check these posts out last week, see our previous posts: Overall Student Trends in Africa, Recruiting Students from Nigeria, Recruiting Students from Kenya, plus this post on Africa’s tech hubs.

How can U.S. institutions use this population growth to their advantage? We've got the data and tips to point you in the right direction.

And, for even more recruitment advice, check out Intead Plus and our new, more affordable Bookshelf Membership.

Read on…

Universities from Moscow to Los Angeles and everywhere in between have a growing interest in student mobility within the African continent. As political tensions grow and visa practices shift, more and more conversations in our industry turn to the question of diversification of student sources.

Frankly, the comment, “I’m concerned that we are too reliant on China,” has been hanging in the air for about a decade. But now, NOW, SIOs and those above them are taking this concern far more seriously.

Long post today. Those who persevere will be rewarded with valuable tips. Promise.

It is important to note the growth of online learning platforms that are expanding everywhere. A recent Intead blog post discussed the growth of Coursera and EdX, which primarily serve U.S. users. Across the Atlantic and the Pacific, there has been a rise in the use of online platforms as well. There are many factors to consider as you think about diversifying your sources of students.

Intead is offering full access to our global market research including our oh-so-helpful ebook on recruiting non-traditional students, now available through a more affordable Intead Plus subscription called Intead Plus Bookshelf. All the market research access and none of the custom Google Analytics Report. Just offering you more options. Take a moment to check it out.

Pro Tip: Your subscription to Intead Plus is institution wide. Anyone internal to your organization can tap our resources through your institutional subscription.

Now, let’s step back just a bit for perspective and then dive in deeper over the next three weeks to consider how diversifying your student sources in Africa can work. We hope you’ll stick with us for this three-part blog series and pass it on to your colleagues.

As always, our posts help you convey to others in your institution a broader understanding of what you are trying to achieve and the challenges you face. And they help you set your plans in motion. 

Read on…

During the 2017-2018 academic year, the enrollments of new international students in U.S. higher education fell for the second year in a row, dropping by 6.6 percent.

There’s definitely one country that hasn’t received the memo: Vietnam.

The number of Vietnamese students in U.S. colleges and universities has steadily increased over the last decade.

What is next in terms of student mobility from Vietnam? Let’s explore what has influenced this student mobility as well as glance at what the education system is like for those at home and what changes may lay in store.

And if you want to know more about student mobility and other global market trends, we have an entire resource library to offer. Check out all of the material you could have access to with Intead Plus and our new, more affordable Bookshelf Membership.

We use the data and perspective shared in this blog to support our thinking about which degree programs have the most value to this set of prospective students and how best to position our clients to leverage the opportunities out there.

Our mantra: each global market needs its own targeted marketing plan and approach.

(Read on)

How well are you using your study abroad students as ambassadors for your institution? Are they prepped to represent? Or, do they simply have too many other things to think about and you don't want to burden them? You may be missing an opportunity to give them a gift.

For many institutions, getting US students to take the study abroad opportunity is a real challenge. Not enough of them do it and we wring our hands wondering, "Why are you missing out on this amazing opportunity?" What's needed is a bit more customer-centric thinking to understand the needs, motivations and hurdles to studying abroad. That's a future blog post unto itself.

Today, we focus on setting up your current study abroad students for success and helping your institution brand get a boost as part of the deal.

More than 325,000 US students studied abroad in 2015/2016 academic year with NYU leading the pack according to IIE data (link below). These students fan out across the globe for adventure, cross-cultural experiences and academic connections. For many students, this becomes the real highlight of their college experience. Their time away from their home institution is a chance to learn at a foreign institution, dive into a new culture, gain language skills, and form lasting memories. Huh, sounds a lot like your international students!

Let's explore how you can help your study abroad students help you as they become ambassadors for your institution.