MARKET NEWS AND MEDIA REVIEW BULLETIN:

11TH APRIL – 24TH APRIL 2015

Compiled by Jamie Aston

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Contents

Summary Section - UK

- USA and Canada

- Australia and New Zealand

- Asia

- International

Full Articles - UK

- USA and Canada

- Australia and New Zealand

- Asia

- International

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Summary Section

UK Back to top

UK HE applicants welcome international students, survey shows :: The Pie News :: 10th April

The majority of domestic applicants to UK universities believe that studying alongside foreign students will help prepare them for work in the global marketplace, according to research commissioned by the Higher Education Policy Institute and Kaplan International Colleges.

Education agents continue to play a larger role in UK recruitment :: ICEF Monitor :: 14th April

The use of education agents to recruit international students is becoming increasingly common around the world, to the point where agents are driving significant proportions of international enrolments in some countries. A recent survey by Times Higher Education (THE), for example, found that British universities’ commission payments to agents totalled £86.7 million (US$127 million) in 2013/14. The Observatory on Borderless Education, meanwhile, says that agents now help recruit almost 40% of Britain’s international students.

USA and Canada Back to top

Rankings and Quality :: Inside Higher Ed :: 21st April At the recent INQAAHE (International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education) bi-annual conference in Chicago, there were more than a few disparaging references to the rankings. The conference brought together representatives of national quality assurance agencies from all over the world. For individuals who dedicate their working hours (and most likely endless additional hours of reflection and research) to the quest of defining, evaluating and pursuing “quality” for higher education, the rankings are an unwelcome distraction indeed.

Australia and New Zealand Back to top

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Education demand sparks a construction boom at universities :: The Australian :: 11th April

Australia is well regarded for providing high-quality international education, attracting thousands of students from around the world. Over the past decades, Australia has emerged as one of the top five providers of international education services, after the US, Britain, Germany and France.

Education’s double bind :: The Australian :: 20th April It’s one of Australia’s best-kept secrets — an export sector that delivered $16.6 billion in economic gains in 2014. Fourth only to iron ore, coal and natural gas, international education is the very model of a modern knowledge economy industry.

Australian unis should take responsibility for corrupt practices in international education :: The Conversation :: 20th April

The higher education sector has become increasingly reliant on income from fee-paying international students since Australian universities first entered foreign markets in 1986, a new report from the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption says.

Asia Back to top

Malaysia releases ambitous blueprint for HE sector growth :: The Pie News :: 16th April

Malaysia’s Ministry of Education released a national ‘blueprint’ of higher education last week, which marks a new phase in the country’s efforts to compete on the higher education global scale.

Does Hong Kong remain a hotbed for international education? :: The Pie News :: 17th April

Since the Umbrella Movement petered to a bureaucratic halt and retired to the negotiating table, the reputation of Hong Kong’s 90,000-odd university students has shifted. No longer destined to join the corporate elite, many young Hong Kongers walked the path of idealistic agitator. For many there would be no turning back.

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International Back to top

International Recruitment: Today’s Issues and Opportunities :: The Lawlor Group :: 8th April

The number of colleges and universities that are recruiting internationally for the first time is on the rise. After all, having students from other countries on campus can boost diversity, infuse the curriculum with a global perspective, and possibly provide a new source of revenue for many schools. To explore the role international recruitment plays in college admissions today, we sought the insight of seasoned recruiters as well as college counselors from around the globe.

Government to close two in every five universities :: University World News :: 17th April

The number of Russian universities will be cut by 40% by the end of 2016, according to Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov. In addition, the number of university branches will be slashed by 80% in the same period.

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Full Articles

UK Back to top

UK HE applicants welcome international students, survey shows

By Beckie Smith :: The Pie News :: 10th April http://thepienews.com/news/uk-applicants-welcome-international-students-survey-shows/

The majority of domestic applicants to UK universities believe that studying alongside foreign students will help prepare them for work in the global marketplace, according to research commissioned by the Higher Education Policy Institute and Kaplan International Colleges. Of the 500 students surveyed by research firm YouthSight, 85% said that having students on their course would help prepare them to work in a globalised economy, and 76% said is would help build a global network. And 87% said it would give them a better world view than working only with other domestic students. “Overall, people applying to university are optimistic – though not naïve – about studying alongside people from other countries,” Nick Hillman, HEPI director, told The PIE News. “They know it will make them more worldly-wise, and the results prove today’s students are tomorrow’s global citizens.” The applicants surveyed were recruited through the UK higher education application platform UCAS, and made up a representative sample of domestic UK applicants in terms of gender, age and school type. Results also showed that applicants’ attitudes towards international faculty are generally positive, with just 4% saying they hope not to have any lecturers from other countries. Some applicants did express concern that the presence of international students in the classroom might impair learning, though the majority disagreed. For example, 29% said they thought that international students might require more attention from teaching staff, though 39% said they would not.

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And the same number said students without English as a first language might slow down a class, while 42% disagreed. Only 11% said that having international students in a class might lead to lower quality academic discussions, with 67% saying this would not happen. Hillman said part of the motivation behind the survey is to shift political debate around the hot topic of international students in the UK. “The political debate on international students has been focused almost exclusively on arguments about economics and security,” he said. “We were keen to shift the focus to education and were pleasantly surprised by just how positive the results were.” Sonal Minocha, pro-vice chancellor for global engagement at Bournemouth University said the survey results aren’t surprising but offer needed evidence in the education sector’s campaign to tackle the “restrictive attitude and policy toward international students”. “We need a consistent and clearer message to our prospective international students to reassure them of our welcome invitation,” she told The PIE News. “A lot of damage has been done by the new visa regime. So we need a survey like this to be delivering policy impact too.” In addition to adding original insight to the debate about international students, the survey also marks the tenth anniversary of Kaplan’s university pathway programmes. “We wanted to learn more about the views held by UK-based students about to enter university, of studying alongside international students,” Linda Cowan, managing director told The PIE News. “The results clearly show that domestic students believe their experience at university will be enriched by studying with international students.”

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Education agents continue to play a larger role in UK recruitment

By (ICEF Staff) :: ICEF Monitor :: 14th April http://monitor.icef.com/2015/04/education-agents-continue-to-play-a-larger-role-in-uk-

recruitment/ The use of education agents to recruit international students is becoming increasingly common around the world, to the point where agents are driving significant proportions of international enrolments in some countries. A recent survey by Times Higher Education (THE), for example, found that British universities’ commission payments to agents totalled £86.7 million (US$127 million) in 2013/14. The Observatory on Borderless Education, meanwhile, says that agents now help recruit almost 40% of Britain’s international students. THE has reported regularly in recent years on university commission payments to agents, and those commission values have increased dramatically over the past decade. The figure noted above for 2013/14 alone represents a 16.5% increase over reported commissions of £74.4 million (US$109 million) for 2011/12, and an average commission per student of £1,767 (US$2,585). The increasing use of education agents by UK institutions appears to have been triggered in part by the first phase of the Prime Minister’s Initiative (PMI) in 1999. The initiative set a target to recruit an additional 75,000 non-European Union students to the UK by 2005. With those initial targets met ahead of schedule, the PMI was succeeded by a second phase (and new targets) in 2006. All that to say that the two PMI phases ushered in a period of expansion for international education in the UK, one that was accomplished in part through the efforts of education agents around the world. The latest THE survey of UK universities found that:

Of 158 higher education institutions, all but 19 elite or specialist institutions now use agents to enrol non-European Union students;

The 124 British institutions that provided admissions data for THE’s 2013/14 survey recruited a total of 58,257 students via education agents. This is a 6.4% increase over the enrolment attributed to agents in 2011/12 and represents 32.5% of all new international students reported for the UK last year.

Commenting on the expanded use of agents, Vincenzo Raimo, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement at the University of Reading said: “I think in part this is due to increased competition both from within the UK but also elsewhere in the world. We have now seen US universities formally starting to work with agents and being aggressive in the market, and UK universities are having to respond in order to meet ever more ambitious recruitment targets.”

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As the practice of using commission-based agents has become more established, the roles agents can play for schools seem to be expanding, and the need for ways to identify the best agents – and to work optimally with them – is growing in tandem. Beyond revenue Until now, international education agents have been valued primarily for their location in key, faraway markets – and consequent ability to represent schools to potential students who would otherwise be very expensive or impossible to reach. According to this role, the agent introduces a prospective student to a school or institution, and if a student chooses a school, the agent most often receives a commission from the school and, in some cases, fees from the student as well. This student-school matching is still a key function of international education agents, but increasingly, it does not encompass all the potential inherent in working with agents. Anna Magyar and Anna Robinson-Pant of the Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE) at University of East Anglia note that it is problematic to consider agents solely from an “instrumental” perspective “based on the imperative of international student recruitment as a vital income stream.” Such a perspective is based on a commoditised approach to education – one that considers international students mainly as a source of revenue especially helpful in times of budget cuts and decreasing domestic enrolments. Martin McQuillan, writing in THE, said the following about the problems with such an approach: “A university degree is not a commodity. It cannot be bought and sold on eBay. A degree is a positional good; its value is a function of the ranking of its desirability by others in comparison with alternatives …. it is the key to unlocking human potential, to securing a more just society …. It also contributes to economic growth and cultural achievement.” For a long time now, agents have been associated with the commercial aspects of international education, and there is growing awareness across international education that this is limiting both in the sense of the respect due to quality agents and in terms of the contribution they make to internationalisation in institutions and schools. Ms Magyar and Ms Robinson-Pant conducted interviews with a small sample of agents that yielded interesting insights into the benefits they see themselves as providing: “An agent in Taiwan explained how she saw her role as helping clients to adopt a ‘healthy concept about pursuing international higher education’ rather than making multiple applications. An agent in Japan, comparing his own experience of applying to a UK university many years ago, felt that applicants needed his help to navigate and interpret the vast amount of information now available on the Internet.

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In many respects, the agents were not only ‘hand-holding’ or selling UK universities to prospective students. They could also help their clients make the transition to another country and higher education system, through informally sharing their cultural insights and experiences.” A different understanding A broader view of the part agents can play in internationalisation has taken hold in recent years, one in which:

Institutions are more transparent about their relationships with agents and how this drives their international student recruitment efforts;

Institutions rely more on available resources (e.g., national agent approval systems like in Australia or New Zealand, or agent training and vetting organisations like AIRC, British Council, and ICEF) to access qualified agents;

Institutions enable agents as partners in extending important student and parent support services and so in boosting the quality and fit of incoming students.

Taken to its fullest extent, this view considers agents to be “engaged in inter-cultural communicative practices … [and] also as ‘educators,” as per Ms Magyar and Ms Robinson-Pant’s line of thinking. At the same time, it more openly acknowledges that agents are key to the recruitment process. For institutions to work optimally with agents, as per the points above, they need to know:

The range of functions the best agents can fulfill;

The resources they can make use of to identify such agents;

The practices they can establish to ensure transparent and productive institution/agency relationships.

The case for transparency The British Council published a guide last year, Managing international student recruitment agents that explores the business case for agents and makes a number of recommendations targeted to UK institutions. The guide emphasises the need for improved training for international office staff, strengthened monitoring of recruitment procedures and results, and better processes for selecting and managing agents. “Much of the discussion about the regulation of agent-led student recruitment is focused on how agents work,” says Mr Raimo, who wrote the guide with co-authors Christine Humfrey and Iona Huang.

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“When things go wrong, we’re quick to blame agents. The reality though is that the university-agent relationship is a partnership and when things go wrong both sides share responsibility… The London Statement is fine but focuses on one side of the partnership only. Universities need to ensure processes for the selection and appointment of agents and then in training and supporting them.” The guide also makes a strong case for more transparency around university-agent relations – more specifically, that universities should publicly release more information about the agents they work with, the nature of those working relationships, and commissions paid. “The current lack of transparency about their use by universities could cause significant harm to the university sector. If UK universities do not themselves better regulate the way they work with agents they could instead face imposed external regulation as has been the case elsewhere and as, it is understood, is currently being considered as an option by the UK Government,” says the guide. The authors note that more openness around university-agency relationships bears on the quality of service for students and families as well. “Greater transparency in the university-agent relationship is needed to ensure that students and their parents understand the nature of the relationship between agents and universities,” adds Mr Raimo. The increasing use of agents in the UK and in other key markets around the world brings home the importance of questions about how best to work with agents in a way that not only drives international enrolments but protects the integrity of the industry and, first and foremost, the best interests of students. International education is clearly taking steps towards greater transparency and improved practice, and it seems likely that the expanded use of education agents will only accelerate this process.

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USA and Canada Back to top

Rankings and Quality

By Liz Reisberg :: Inside higher Ed :: 21st April https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/world-view/rankings-and-quality

At the recent INQAAHE (International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education) bi-annual conference in Chicago, there were more than a few disparaging references to the rankings. The conference brought together representatives of national quality assurance agencies from all over the world. For individuals who dedicate their working hours (and most likely endless additional hours of reflection and research) to the quest of defining, evaluating and pursuing “quality” for higher education, the rankings are an unwelcome distraction indeed. I suspect that the frustration of the attendees at the INQAAHE conference is that the rankings too often become a surrogate for quality. No matter how many articles appear in the media or in academic journals explaining the rankings— their flaws, their limitations, etc.—stakeholders outside of the academy will continue to reference them to conclude which universities are “the best”. This is all the more frustrating for those of us familiar with the criteria that shape the results of rankings as they are often not relevant to the needs of the individuals and organizations that use them. Yet annual release of international rankings from the Academic Ranking of World Universities in Shanghai, the Times Higher Education, and QS continue to attract a lot of attention. The problem, rarely acknowledged, is that the rankings fill a need. With an estimated 16,000 institutions of higher education in the world (more than 3,000 universities in the US alone), some means of making distinctions among them is required. Pity the student who has private funding or a scholarship that allows for study anywhere in the world and has to begin to sort through the overwhelming number of options. The employer trying to select among several job applicants with foreign degrees and credentials from unfamiliar institutions is often equally flummoxed. Governments supporting large scholarship programs frequently rely on rankings to determine where sponsored students can study, often using multiple rankings to determine an “acceptable” placement. Rankings provide a quick and easily accessible reference and quality assurance schemes do not. The rankings are an efficient mechanism to decrease the total of global institutions to a more manageable number, no matter that the results exclude excellent institutions because they do not fit the protocol used. I will not review the way rankings are constructed here as this analysis has been done in the excellent work of Ellen Hazelkorn and others. Suffice it to say that with the exception of the extensive categories provided by US News & World Report, the rankings tend to favor elite, well-funded, research universities and a first-rate university education is most certainly not limited to this type of institution.

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The quality assurance schemes operating in most nations provide much more detailed (and relevant) information. These programs evaluate degree programs and institutions, one at a time, measuring performance against institutional mission and within a national context. The process leading to accreditation includes a long, detailed self-assessment followed by an evaluation by qualified external evaluators. The resulting, often technical, reports provide very useful information. But to the general public, quality assurance schemes only provide a yes or no answer. In other words, the detailed assessment of an institution leads to “yes,” accredited or “no,” not accredited. And “yes” covers a lot of diversity in the higher education environment with no mechanism for comparison. It is unlikely that prospective students or employers will dedicate the time to reading the evaluation reports (if they are even publicly available) to learn the finer details of an institution’s strengths and uniquenesses. I am not advocating a graded system of accreditation, although some countries do this, only suggesting that while national and international quality assurance agencies provide a much more careful and in-depth assessments of quality than those provided by any of the rankings, their conclusions are less useful because they are less comprehensible to key stakeholders. We have to recognize that there is a general need to make sense of the diverse global higher education environment and, for the moment, the rankings provide a more expedient tool for measuring and comparing institutions than the accreditation agencies. If the higher education community (including quality assurance agencies) hopes to diminish the influence of rankings, then we will have to develop a more useful way to communicate how our work affirms quality.

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Australia and New Zealand Back to top

Education demand sparks a construction boom at universities

By Besa Deda :: The Australian :: 11th April http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/education-demand-sparks-a-

construction-boom-at-universities/story-fn9656lz-1227299100779 Australia is well regarded for providing high-quality international education, attracting thousands of students from around the world. Over the past decades, Australia has emerged as one of the top five providers of international education services, after the US, Britain, Germany and France. According to Invest in Australia, each year, Australia attracts more than 450,000 students from about 200 countries. Not surprisingly then, education — which is a $15 billion-plus industry — is one of Australia’s top export sectors. With the mining investment boom now over, it is vital that other industries gather momentum. Service industries that Australia traditionally excels in are an important part of this story. Education also helps feed one of our other top exporting industries — tourism — with friends and relatives of students having an incentive to visit Australia. The high level of the Australian dollar in recent years had tempered the enthusiasm of international students to study in Australia by making it more costly to undertake tertiary education. There was a notable decline in the intake from India and South Korea, but also other Asian nations. The depreciation of the Australian dollar, particularly from the middle of last year, has helped spur a recovery in the international education sector. The demand for Australian education facilities means there will be growth in building activity for Australian universities. In the 12 months to February 2015, the value of buildings approved for construction in the private education sector averaged $134.3 million per month, according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It is the highest value since June 2011, leaving aside the higher result for November 2014. Building approvals are a leading indicator of construction work, so the latest figures suggest further construction in the education sector lies ahead. The anecdotes underscore these figures.

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One of Australia’s best young universities, the University of Western Sydney, has pre-­committed to 28,000sq m for a new office building at its Parramatta campus. This signature high-rise building to be ready by 2017 at a cost of over $120m is expected to allow the university to double international enrolments. Meanwhile, in February, the NSW government approved a $1.4bn facelift of Australia’s oldest university, the University of Sydney. This makeover will cater for significant growth at its Camperdown and Darlington campuses. The plan will see around eight or so buildings demolished. It will take seven years to complete and help boost jobs growth. These projects come on the heels of the $1bn poured into new buildings by the University of Technology, Sydney, which included a high-profile business school designed and renowned architect Frank Gehry. A $100m architecture building at the University of Melbourne has also wrapped up recently.

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Education’s double bind

By Julie Hare :: The Australian :: 20th April http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/educations-double-bind/story-e6frg6z6-

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It’s one of Australia’s best-kept secrets — an export sector that delivered $16.6 billion in economic gains in 2014. Fourth only to iron ore, coal and natural gas, international education is the very model of a modern knowledge economy industry. Having fashioned a new sector from the fragments of a 1950s aid program called the Colombo Plan, Australia invented mass international education in the 1980s. This year 600,000 international students will be educated in our universities, colleges and schools and many tens of thousands more by our educators in their own countries. That supports about 130,000 jobs nationally and many more indirectly. But over many years, beneath the ballooning revenues and political braggadocio, there has festered a less salubrious side: one of overcrowded classrooms, questionable academic standards, cheating, rorting and, according to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, perhaps even bribery and corruption. “Between 1988 and 2014, the number of fee-paying international students at universities in NSW increased 13-fold and, today, represent nearly one in five of those studying at universities in this state,” the ICAC report says.

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“False entry standards, cheating on English-language proficiency tests, essay mills selling assignments, plagiarism, cheating in university exams and paying others to sit exams are reportedly common.” Ask anyone who has studied or taught on a city-based university campus in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane and they’ll tell you what the real story is. Lectures and tutorials filled to bursting with overseas students, particularly in business and accounting courses. They’ll tell you of classes in which 80 per cent of the students are Mandarin speakers. They’ll tell you of students who can barely speak, never mind write or read, English. It’s a double bind. With international students contributing 17 per cent of university revenues, they are a much-needed source of ­income. “Students may be struggling to pass but universities cannot afford to fail them,” ICAC bluntly puts it. “There is a widespread public perception that academic standards are lowered to accommodate a cohort of students who struggle to pass.” Inevitably, that leads to cheating, says ICAC. Of course, that sort of behaviour is not confined to NSW or to universities, or to international students. Domestic students are also known to cheat and increasing numbers get into university with substandard academic abilities. The link between education and permanent residency was established in the 2000s when the Howard government guaranteed permanent residency for foreign students with an Australian degree. The scheme took off like wild fire, as institutions such as Central Queensland University set up high-rise city-based campuses designed to ride the wave of students eager for easy residency status. But, as Monash University researcher Bob Birrell discovered, it didn’t take long before hundreds of thousands of students, mainly from India, Nepal and China, soon realised they could do a much cheaper and quicker vocational certificate in cookery or hairdressing and still win the prize — the right to legally stay in Australia. In 2009, there were 632,000 international students here, of whom 232,475 were enrolled in mainly private, many dodgy, vocational colleges, an increase of 37 per cent from 2008. Yet the halcyon days of easy visas came crashing to a halt in 2009 when a perfect storm hit the booming sector: the high dollar made an Australian education expensive; increased competition came from Britain, Canada, Singapore and the US; a spate of violent attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney garnered widespread negative international press and earned Australia the label of “racist”; and dodgy colleges started crashing — taking their students’ dreams of residency, if not an education, with them. Following a review by Michael Knight, the former NSW Olympics minister, new tougher visa rules meant that trusted providers — the country’s 40 universities and a handful of private colleges — were given streamlined visa-processing (SVP) status allowing them to more easily attract and enrol students.

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The new rules also put the onus of responsibility for enrolling genuine students on the institution, not the immigration department, with the threat of expulsion from the SVP system if they are found to have enrolled too many non-genuine students. The system appears to be working. Immigration department figures show 7061 student visas were cancelled in 2014, up from just 1978 cancellations in 2012. The issue with who is, and who isn’t, a genuine student starts at the beginning of the student recruitment process. Universities employ dozens of agents across many countries and this, ICAC, says, is where the rot sets in. Agents get paid a commission of up to 20 per cent of first-year tuition fees for every student they recruit, says Dean Forbes, a former head of international education at Flinders University. Forbes is working on a project on corruption in education in southeast Asia with a group of researchers from Oxford University. With annual tuition fees for a business degree ranging from $18,560 at small regional institutions such as Southern Cross University, to $35,000 at Melbourne University, the incentives for engaging in fraud and deception are high. “Some universities in NSW use up to 300 agents and this was never going to be manageable. Document fraud and cheating in corrupt markets (is) well known,” ICAC says. “Without exception, all universities contacted by the Commission had experienced instances of agents submitting false documentation, assisting students to corruptly pass admission processing or attempting to bribe staff to approve certain student applications.” It goes on: “In (one) university, the incentive for sales staff was to enrol as many students as the university could accommodate, knowing that once the students were enrolled, any weaknesses in their language or academic abilities would be dealt with by the faculty rather than the international student office. Indeed, there was no disincentive to international student office sales staff to accept borderline or underqualified students.” The federal education department is understood to be drafting a national code for best practice for the use of education agents and consultants. It will suggest, among other things, that universities demand the termination of corrupt agents, develop an industry-led quality assurance scheme and provide information on which agents recruit academically successful students, and which don’t. At the same time, a long overdue draft strategy for the international education sector was finally released by Education Minister Christopher Pyne earlier this month, following a review in 2011 by businessman Michael Chaney.

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While the draft obliquely refers to the importance of a quality system in attracting good students, it does not reference any of the issues raised in the ICAC report or an earlier 2011 Victorian ombudsman’s report that arrived at similar findings. And with the government harbouring grand ambitions for the sector, these issues are going to have to be faced head on. Trade Minister Andrew Robb has suggested the sector could grow to 10 million students by 2022, largely through online delivery, as the expanding middle classes of Asia seek to cement their economic privilege. The question of how that could be achieved without even more compromise to the integrity of the system is not addressed in the draft strategy. Submissions to it close on May 29. But back to ICAC, which is explicit in making a correlation between universities’ increasing financial reliance on international students — after successive federal governments cut back per-student funding — and their enthusiasm for turning a blind eye to questionable practices. Indeed, research conducted at Melbourne University in 2011 found that every international student cross-subsidises a domestic one to the tune of $1200 a year. The study also found international students paid an average of $5000 more than the estimated average cost of teaching their course, with some paying up to $10,000 more, depending on the course and institution. As successive governments have focused on increasing domestic participation — the proportion of people aged 35 and under with a degree is hovering about the 40 per cent mark — per-student funding has been static or in decline, driving universities to seek alternative revenue streams. Total government contributions to big research-intensive universities are now down to about 20 per cent of revenues. The sector average is about 40 per cent. One in every five students enrolled in an Australian university is from overseas, a figure that is as high as one in three in some universities and much higher in business faculties, where international students gravitate. Yet national data shows international students pass at a higher rate than their domestic colleagues. “Staff within universities in NSW find ways to pass students in order to preserve budgets,” the ICAC report says. The only robust survey of international students’ academic performance was conducted by University of NSW economist Gigi Foster in 2010. Studying the enrolment and academic pass rates of 12,846 students in the business faculties of two universities, Foster found international students from non-English-speaking backgrounds underperform domestic students as a result of language and cultural barriers — as one would expect.

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But she also found underperformance is less pronounced when there are proportionately more international students in the class. Stunningly, she also found that classes composed almost entirely of international students would on average be 6.5 points higher than those courses comprising solely domestic students. The resulting furore — with universities shamelessly in denial and ferociously attacking Foster — have ensured it is unlikely any full and objective analyses of academic performance will be repeated, a situation that does not sit well with the outspoken Foster. “Universities don’t want to know the truth,” she says, adding that sensitivities over the potential to appear xenophobic and political correctness also prevent the sector from confronting the issues. Foster agrees with ICAC’s assessment that student recruitment practices through offshore agents go to the heart of the matter. “There’s an assumption that we need to rely on intermediaries to recruit students,” she says. “But if you look at the very best universities overseas, such as Harvard or Yale, the admissions processes are the same for all students whether they are international or domestic and that process is much more detailed and nuanced.” However, Phil Honeywood, executive director of the International Education Association of Australia, says we need to keep a sense of perspective. With nearly 600,000 international students here in any one year — and more than 250,000 of them in universities — there are always going to be cases of people not doing the right thing. Honeywood contends cheating and rorting are not as widespread as ICAC suggests, adding that the report is big on anecdote but short on evidence. He also states the case that such behaviours are not isolated to overseas students. Forbes agrees, adding that even locals often perform poorly on language and numeracy tests, pointing to a recent push for literacy and numeracy tests to be conducted on graduating education students before they enter the country’s classrooms as teachers. Besides, says Honeywood, we can’t have it both ways. “We are happy for overseas students to pay two to three times what our own students pay in tuition fees for the same degrees and, in effect, cross-subsidise our children’s educations,” he says. “We are also content to watch as many of these overseas students do the “dirty” part-time jobs that few of our Australian-born young people would ever stomach doing themselves nowadays.

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“Then we want to vilify them for filling up our universities, for lowering our academic standards, for taking our jobs and, even, for pushing up house prices.”

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Australian unis should take responsibility for corrupt practices in international education

By Tracey Bretag :: The Conversation :: 20th April http://theconversation.com/australian-unis-should-take-responsibility-for-corrupt-practices-

in-international-education-40380 The higher education sector has become increasingly reliant on income from fee-paying international students since Australian universities first entered foreign markets in 1986, a new report from the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption says. From 1988-2014, the number of international students at Australian universities increased 13-fold. These students now comprise 18% of the student population in NSW universities, and often exceed 25%. In many business schools, this percentage is substantially higher. The need to generate revenue has often conflicted with the obligation to ensure academic quality and integrity. However, to date, the “blame” for declining standards has tended to rest with international students themselves rather than educational institutions or the sector more broadly. The range of corruption issues that has emerged suggests standards have indeed been compromised. These include: falsification of entry documents, cheating in English language proficiency tests, online contract cheat sites selling assignments or providing the means for so-called “file sharing”, widespread plagiarism, and cheating and fraud in examinations. It is widely known by all stakeholders in the sector that a significant number of international students for whom English is an additional language struggle to meet the linguistic and academic demands of their courses. It is also widely known that international students are burdened with additional pressures relating to culture, finance, family and peer groups. While cheating is certainly not limited to international students, they are particularly vulnerable to the brazen marketing tactics of a burgeoning cheating industry which has the capacity to infiltrate social media, university email systems and message boards. This occurs both on campus and online. International students are easy targets for unscrupulous businesses advertising “assistance” with assignments and exams. They are striving to make sense of the new academic environment and often have inadequate English or poor educational preparation. They may also have entered the system with false credentials, or may have come from cultures more accepting of practices that we would regard as corrupt.

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The media have been at the forefront in exposing cheating and plagiarism scandals by international students. The recent MyMaster investigation revealed the widespread use of cheat sites. In this case, Chinese students could purchase ready-made essays on a given topic. The resulting public outcry has, at times, been little more than thinly veiled racism. International students have been blamed for declining academic standards, while the higher education sector has not been held to account. The recently released ICAC NSW report has turned its attention to the role of universities in enabling and facilitating corrupt practices. The report suggests that Australian universities were not well prepared to enter the international student market. This lack of preparation had long-reaching and most often negative consequences. The report says competition for international students has led universities to:

aggressively market for international students without considering the associated costs and risks

set inappropriately low English language requirements

rely on largely unregulated agents with inducements to submit applications from insufficiently qualified students or, worse, to submit fraudulent applications

establish offshore partnerships without the necessary due diligence

set recruitment KPIs, reinforced by financial incentives, with no accountability for quality or resulting pressures on academic workloads

leave the burden of maintaining standards with teaching academics, while simultaneously pressuring them to pass work of insufficient quality and turn a blind eye to misconduct.

ABC TV’s Four Corners expose, “Degrees of Deception”, validated every one of ICAC’s conclusions. The program gave voice to the desperation of many academics. Their life work of teaching has been undermined by an environment that has little to do with education and more to do with revenue raising. Tales of being forced to change grades, ignore incomprehensible English, pass plagiarised assignments and manage their own and students' rising stress levels characterised the interviews. It is apparent that corruption has seeped into every aspect of the higher education sector, from admissions all the way through to graduation. The information shared on Four Corners will no doubt come as a shock to the average family. For those of us in higher education, this isn’t news. Rather than become despondent and accept the status quo, positive moves are afoot. ICAC has provided a list of “12 corruption prevention initiatives” to counter problems that have been

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“created by a university’s reliance on revenues from international students who struggle to meet the academic standards of the university that recruited them.” These revolve around relationships with partners and agents, marketing and financial strategies, risk, due diligence, accountability of international offices, governance strategies and admissions. While no specific “initiative” was provided in relation to setting minimum English language requirements, this issue underpinned the whole report. It notes that: “of all the reasons cited to the Commission, low English-language proficiency was the most common basis given for international students engaging in academic misconduct.” It is evident that universities ignore this fact at their peril. Thirty years after entering foreign markets, the Australian higher education sector is beginning to recognise that a short-sighted and ill-planned grab for revenue has had long-reaching and potentially disastrous effects on academic standards, integrity and reputation. ICAC has provided a number of useful recommendations. These make clear the responsibility of universities, not students, for rectifying these issues.

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Asia Back to top

Malaysia releases ambitous blueprint for HE sector growth

By Natalie Marsh :: The Pie News :: 16th April http://thepienews.com/news/malaysia-releases-ambitous-blueprint-for-he-sector-growth/

Malaysia’s Ministry of Education released a national ‘blueprint’ of higher education last week, which marks a new phase in the country’s efforts to compete on the higher education global scale. Notably, it has reset the goal of hosting 200,000 international students in the country by 2020 to 250,000 by 2025, and is currently on track to meet this target, the government says. Launched on 7 April, the Malaysia Education Blueprint (Higher Education) outlines a number of strategies to sustain and improve the growth the sector is already experiencing. The document states that the Ministry’s main aspiration is to “create a higher education system that ranks among the world’s leading education systems and that enables Malaysia to compete in the global economy”. Speaking at the blueprint launch last Tuesday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said he wants Malaysia’s higher education to “be among the best; if possible, be the top one-third of all the nations in the world.” Edwin Tay, CEO of EasyUni, a university search portal for Asian students, said that the blueprint will help to “make Malaysia a destination that is hard to be ignored when choosing higher education in the region”. “Our leaders do see the benefits of attracting international students into the country, not only for its immediate economic benefits via tuition fees, but also other long term benefits,” he told The PIE News. “They understand that foreign students spending four years in Malaysia will get assimilated with its culture and lifestyle, thus have a higher propensity to come back and re-invest into Malaysia once they are more successful.” Following the launch of the Malaysia education blueprint 2013-2025 (pre-school to post-secondary education) two years ago, the higher education version will build upon aspirations already proposed: access, quality, equity, unity and efficiency. In order to achieve these aspirations, the blueprint contains ten ‘shifts’ – one of which will focus on global prominence.

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Yazid Hamid, CEO of Education Malaysia Global Services, the government-backed agency charged with processing visas and providing students services, said that although some individual institutions have been focused on internationalisation, a national strategy would make Malaysian education easier to market globally. “We cannot be the best in everything but we do offer certain areas of value and a unique position for people to come here,” he said, speaking with The PIE News. “For example, for international students who are looking at getting the best exposure, especially in tropical related sciences, this is the place to be.” According to the QS World University rankings, five of Malaysia’s universities rank among Asia’s Top 100, with one ranking in the Top 200 globally. Beyond reputation, the blueprint also focused on ‘globalised online learning’.

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Higher learning institutes will be required to harness the use of technology, with up to 70% of undergraduate courses using blended-learning models. “With every new idea, the devil is in the implementation,” said Tay. “For MOOCs, it’s not just the platform, rather the content plays as much important role and a critical success factor.” Over the last 10 years, access to higher education in Malaysia has increased by 70% to 1.2 million, and from 1990 to 2010, there has been a six-fold increase in students enroling on a Bachelor’s degree. With the new scheme, prime minister Najib says he aims to ensure the growing number of graduates are ready to compete globally. “Our education system must be able to generate talent. How does one classify this talent?…A talent that is up to global standards. So you are benchmarking internationally. You want to be among the best,” he said.

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Does Hong Kong remain a hotbed for international education?

By Tom Spurling :: The Pie News :: 17th April http://thepienews.com/analysis/hong-kong-remain-hotbed-international-education/

Since the Umbrella Movement petered to a bureaucratic halt and retired to the negotiating table, the reputation of Hong Kong’s 90,000-odd university students has shifted. No longer destined to join the corporate elite, many young Hong Kongers walked the path of idealistic agitator. For many there would be no turning back. Undeterred by internal affairs — or perhaps buoyed by the open dissent — roughly 14,000 international students chose Hong Kong as a study destination this year, lifting its ranking as a student city of choice to an impressive 5th place globally, according to QS. So how is HK evolving as both international education hub and important source market? Hong Kong authorities have responded to concerns in recent years about a perceived shortage of international students, and the Special Administrative Region has emerged as a key supplier of educational services to foreigners, most notably from mainland China (about 65% in 2015). Hong Kong boasts three universities in the QS Top 50. In Pok Fu Lam on Hong Kong Island is the prestigious Hong Kong University at #28; on Kowloon side is The University of Science and Technology at #40 (ranked 16th worldwide for global employability of its graduates); and on a beautiful hillside campus in the New Territories lies The Chinese University of Hong Kong (ranked #46), which teaches mostly in Mandarin. There are five other public universities, and a host of private operators. There is, if anything, a potential for oversupply. Rankings hold great currency in one of the most market-driven societies in the world. The former British colony now holds the coveted number one spot in Asia, surpassing traditional rival Singapore, on the grounds of safety, student diversity, affordable tuition fees and overall living standard. Given the worsening air quality, widening income disparity, and, in particular, scarce student accommodation, this is no small achievement. “Since housing is so expensive on the island, it’s not a problem that can be easily solved,” says Rocio Blasco Garcia, a senior lecturer at Hong Kong University. “HKU built four residential colleges in three years, but demand outstrips supply and even local students are unhappy because they would like to experience hall life and many have up to a two-hour commute on a daily basis.” On the plus side, relatively cheap living costs (in particular, food and transport), predominantly English instruction, a rich cultural life, and the city’s convenient geographic location ensure Hong Kong has remained a desirable place to study.

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At the post-graduate level, government scholarships are readily available, although inflexible visa laws make it difficult for students to work legally off-campus to supplement their income. Peter Pulsford, a British doctoral candidate at HKU who also completed two previous degrees at Hong Kong’s leading university, described his student visa as essentially ‘worthless’ in supporting his attempts to work part-time. Fortunately, recent amendments to the Immigration Policy on Study have enabled international students to undertake paid ‘summer’ jobs and ‘on-campus’ employment of up to 20 hours per week. Outbound student mobility is also steadily growing, as more middle-income Hong Kong households make provision for their children to attend an overseas university. These types of private, long-term investments have lasting commercial and cultural benefits for those who can afford it.

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International Back to top

International Recruitment: Today’s Issues and Opportunities

By By Virginia R. Buege :: The Lawlor Group :: 8th April http://www.thelawlorgroup.com/international-recruitment-todays-issues-and-opportunities/

The number of colleges and universities that are recruiting internationally for the first time is on the rise. After all, having students from other countries on campus can boost diversity, infuse the curriculum with a global perspective, and possibly provide a new source of revenue for many schools. To explore the role international recruitment plays in college admissions today, we sought the insight of seasoned recruiters as well as college counselors from around the globe. The United States can document a long-standing interest in attracting global talent to her shores, and many American colleges and universities boast a rich history of enrolling foreign nationals from a variety of countries who are studying alongside their students here. But now it seems the sheer volume of recruitment activity in the People’s Republic of China and the record numbers of Chinese students applying to study in the U.S. is coloring every conversation on the topic of international recruitment. With a cautionary reminder from our experts that China is simply the country du jour—and that the current stream of Chinese students could change at a moment’s notice—we share with you insights on the trends, challenges, and lessons learned from international recruitment today in hopes that it can be applied to the enrollment management of tomorrow. B.C. (Before China) The flow of students to the United States for college or university study has always mirrored international economic and political trends. In the 1970s many students came from Iran and other oil-rich nations. When that began to taper off in the 1980s, large numbers of students from Malaysia and South America took their place. In the last decade, Asia has dominated the scene. Eric Staab, dean of admission and financial aid at Kalamazoo College (Michigan), has been engaged in international admissions at selective liberal arts colleges for almost 25 years, and he says there have always been lots of applicants from China. “The difference is that they rarely got their visas before,” he says. “In the past, I always assumed that only half of our Chinese admits would make it to campus due to the U.S. Consulate denying their visas.”

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Around 2007 the situation with China began to change, presumably because the U.S. State Department assessed that China’s economy was strong enough that their students were less likely to stay in the U.S. after completing their degrees. Indeed, the Chinese economy was heating up. The combination of a growing middle class with the ability to pay for college and fewer impediments from the U.S. government opened the floodgate. For the past five years China has remained the leading place of origin for students coming to the United States, with the number of students just under 275,000 in 2013-14, which is far more than the next-highest number of nearly 103,000 students from India. While students from China make up almost one-third of all international undergraduates in the U.S., the 2014 edition of the annual “Open Doors” report from the Institute of International Education shows an overall growth of international students, with notable spikes across a wider range of countries that include Kuwait, Brazil, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. “I’ve been at this for 10 years, and the recruitment landscape changes constantly,” says Reon Sines-Sheaff, director of international admission at The College of Wooster (Ohio). “Ten years ago India was the largest sending country, and it has now been surpassed by China. But for several years the numbers from Saudi Arabia have grown fastest of all other sending countries, with double-digit percentage growth.” Do You Have What It Takes? Whether creating a new international recruiting program or expanding one that already exists, a campus needs to be acutely aware of the unique needs of international students and be prepared to address them. “To begin with, you will need to have people on campus who understand what will need to happen in the visa process, who are ready to welcome the students to campus, and who will support them once they get there,” says Wooster’s Sines-Sheaff. “It’s a mistake to recruit the students and then try to figure out what to do with them once they get to campus.” Of course, getting to this point requires a bit of introspection by the larger campus community, according to Joan Liu, university advisor at United World College of Southeast Asia (Singapore). “Administrators will need to ask themselves a lot of questions, from whether they have the resources on campus to support the visa process and Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) to whether they can provide the necessary English support programs, including possibly ESL or EFL,” says Liu. Kalamazoo’s Staab adds to the list of imperatives. “You must address the institution’s financial aid policy, tolerance for English proficiency, and ability to evaluate foreign transcripts (and who pays for it if that’s done out of house), along with the capacity to support the international students once on campus,” he says.

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Once these questions have been answered, policies must be established and funding issues must be tackled—and this means more than merely increasing the annual admissions travel budget. For starters, there are staffing considerations. “If you’re serious about international students and getting them on your campus, create a full-time position for this effort,” says Liu. “F-1 [visa] students have their own set of needs that differ from domestic students, and working with them will be a full-time job—not one that should be divided up piecemeal to admissions officers who already have other responsibilities.” “Further, if you want a diverse group of students from around the world, one significant barrier to this goal will be cost,” says Liu. “Universities and colleges who have managed to build an inclusive, diverse, and truly global citizenry on their campuses have done so with the financial commitment on the part of their institution.” With more than two decades of experience in the field of international admissions, as both an admissions officer and more recently with the Council of International Schools, consultant Tom LePere says, “For an international enrollment strategy to succeed, it is essential to have top-down support, with buy-in from the presidential and board level down to all key departments in the campus community.” “These students will engage with almost every department on campus, and an institution must be positioned and funded not only to recruit international students but to retain them by ensuring they have a successful educational experience,” LePere says. Take a Three-Year Pledge At the risk of stating the obvious, overseas travel by a college representative is a must for international admissions. And seasoned recruiters say three years is the minimum period of time a college needs to commit to a new market before deciding if it is worthwhile. Nicholas Forcier, associate director of international admission at Bennington College (Vermont), says, “On a number of occasions I’ve seen that the first year often results in no applications, the second year results in a couple with perhaps no matriculants, and the third year begins to produce students who enroll.” During that time, the institution should cultivate relationships with individual secondary schools and other colleges that recruit abroad, as well as non-profit organizations affiliated with international recruiting. Wooster’s Sines-Sheaff says traveling overseas and meeting counselors in person allows you to better understand a market, just as it does domestically. “It gives me the opportunity to learn about these schools and ask counselors what their students are looking for,” she says. “For example, rankings in China are a huge issue, and if you don’t understand why and how to answer the inevitable rankings question, you won’t get any applicants.”

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Smith College (Massachusetts) has a long history of recruiting internationally, and establishing and maintaining partnerships has been key to their success, according to Karen Kristof, senior associate director of admissions. “Our partners have been instrumental in helping us to expand our international enrollment, not only in quantity—from an average of 7-9 percent a few years ago to 15 percent today—but also in diversity,” she says. Building partnerships has been important in developing Bennington’s brand recognition around the world, according to Forcier. “In addition to visiting high schools overseas, we have worked with EducationUSA, Davis United World Scholars Program, ANSA, and other non-profits like the Open A Door Foundation,” he says. Bennington’s recent history seems to bear out this strategy: In 2010 when the college began recruiting abroad, there were 15 international freshman students on campus. International applications to Bennington have increased by 53.6 percent since then, and the 2014-15 class included 50 international students from across the globe. Granted, this level of effort at establishing partnerships takes time and money. “Often, it means offering financial aid outside of an institution’s merit model in order to establish that the institution is willing to commit substantial resources toward enrolling students it is excited about,” says Forcier. But in Bennington’s experience, the academic quality of the international applicant pool is increasing and so is the ability of the students in the pool to contribute financially to their education. “A process of strategic thinking, cultivating relationships, and building the college’s brand through repeated visits to the same cities and schools has helped us make substantial progress toward achieving a long-term goal of having an academically and financially viable applicant pool,” he says. Travelling Solo or in Groups Whether a recruiter travels alone, with a small cadre of other recruiters, or as part of group travel seems to depend largely on the recruiter’s level of experience as well as the institution’s name recognition abroad. Jimm Crowder served as the director of international admissions at Macalester College (Minnesota) for more than three decades. Today he consults with colleges and universities as they work to build and maintain foreign student programs. He recommends that for the first couple of years, a recruiter travel with a group of other schools. “Multiple tour options are available, all with appealing elements, including opportunities to create strong networks,” he says. In some cases it may be advisable for colleges to add on some individual travel before or after a group tour to meet institutional needs.

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To some extent, group visits are becoming a trend for many high schools anyway, according to Crowder. “When I began my career in international admissions I would regularly go to prominent high schools abroad where I was the sole U.S. admissions professional to visit for the academic year,” he says. “Now secondary schools abroad often entertain hundreds of college reps during the admissions cycle, and they now limit their visit days to one or two per year, with a group of 10 to 15 institutions appearing in a college fair format.” “Whatever the format,” stressed Crowder, “colleges new to international admissions can still greatly benefit from overseas visits.” How Do You Sell Your School Overseas? “It’s challenging enough to sell a small, liberal arts college education in the U.S., and doing this overseas is that much more complicated!” exclaims Kalamazoo’s Staab. “Persistence is the only solution.” Bennington’s Forcier agrees that consistency is key. “Not being as widely recognized as a Harvard or Stanford is a challenge initially, but it is surprising how quickly a college can build brand recognition, particularly in small communities,” he says. While students are looking for top schools, he believes they also appreciate the personal touch and sense of community offered by recruiters during the college search. “When Bennington shows up to a high school and meets a student in the spring of his or her junior year and then again in the fall of the senior year, the student develops a sense of familiarity not only with the recruiter, but with the institution,” says Forcier. “Our work representing the campus helps students to realize that while the surrounding area may be rural, our campus is vibrant and the people are engaging.” While overcoming the allure of going to college in a big city can be a difficult task, Sarah H. Leavell, director of international admissions at Denison University (Ohio), finds that students’ families often like what they hear about Midwestern college towns. “The safety, friendliness, lower cost of living, and real sense of community that towns like Granville offer appeal to them,” she says. Leavell also tries to give students a greater level of geographic understanding, showing them exactly how far Denison is from an airport as well as major urban areas they’ve hear about. “We are able to show students that they have access to vibrant, metropolitan areas nearby, while enjoying the safety and security of a close-knit residential campus,” she says. Ffiona Rees, senior associate director of international admission at the University of California, Los Angeles and president of the Overseas Association for College Admission Counseling (OACAC), sees reaching international students as remarkably similar to recruiting domestic students. “Students and families want to know what mechanisms institutions have in place to support their population, be it first-generation, under-represented minority, low-income, or international students,” she says. “Each group wants to see the related student organizations and student services, and hear the success stories.”

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“And just like with domestic students, the pipeline effect is critical,” says Rees. “Once the institution successfully enrolls and retains the students, more will follow.” “On the flip side, if students come to your institution and have a negative experience, word can spread very quickly through the international community,” says Joe Giacalone, director of international admission and recruitment at Marist College (New York). Independent consultant LePere suggests that when it comes to attracting, engaging, and enrolling a diverse pool of international students, colleges should not put all their eggs into any one basket. “Institutions should have a multifaceted strategy that includes a variety of approaches, including social and electronic media, individual and group recruitment travel, the use of alumni and current students, and regular outreach to counseling communities,” he says. On this note, Wooster’s Sines-Sheaff encourages colleagues to remember their audience when creating international marketing materials. “Tell students what they need to know,” she says. “Don’t assume they know the basics, like where your school, city, or even state is located.” Revenue vs. Diversity At various points in time, colleges and universities have recruited mostly from one part of the world when the economic and political circumstances have supported it. “The tendency to rely on a few key markets at the expense of diversification mirrors our cultural tendency toward immediate gratification,” says LePere. “If a university’s goal is diversifying the student body and providing an international type of experience to local students, you want people from Latvia, Ghana, Bangladesh, and so forth,” says Bill Kolb, coordinator of the United World College scholarship program at the University of Florida. “Unfortunately, very few students from most regions of the world are able to afford a U.S. university education.” And when colleges and universities do not have the financial resources to fund a significant international scholarship program but the desire is to increase international enrollment, they have to go to the countries that have families who are able and willing to pay for a U.S. education. “Today, this is primarily China and India,” says Kolb. International recruiters agree there are downsides to enrolling students primarily from one region of the world. “It’s a lot of work for a campus to integrate international students, and it’s even harder when there is a majority from one place,” says LaPere. “It’s human nature to latch onto others like you. We Americans do it when we are abroad, so it’s no surprise that students who share a cultural or national background may naturally want to hang out with each other, study together, and speak in their native tongue rather than join in the conversation in English,” he says.

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Liu points out that if a college wants to fulfill a philosophical mission of global understanding and “diplomacy and ambassadorship,” it’s difficult to do this if the majority of the campus’ international students are from China, since most who apply to the U.S. are generally affluent and upper class. “The result in these cases is that the U.S. students gain a skewed view and understanding of China, since they only hear this one voice,” she says. In order to have a truly diverse student body and one that better reflects the world, Liu believes colleges must recruit students from various countries and from varied socio-economic strata. And yet most international recruiters anticipate a continued growth of applications from China. “All things being equal (and they never are), I expect no significant changes,” says Marjorie S. Smith, director of international student admission at the University of Denver (Colorado). “Unless the bottom drops out of the Chinese economy (always a possibility) or we suffer another huge terrorist attack, a massive public health threat hit, or another economic crisis here in the U.S. again soon, things should remain mostly steady.” Where There’s a Will (There’s a Way) When colleges recruit international students primarily for revenue, consultant Crowder anticipates longer term consequences. “There are issues on campus when there is a dominant culture, as well as the challenges of perpetuating that type of growth and income,” he says. A wiser path, he advises, is to have a financial aid policy for international students that mirrors that of the institution’s domestic policy. In other words, colleges should take no-need students as needed but also have a budget that allows for grants equal to those given to American students. The University of Florida has achieved one of the most diverse international student bodies at any institution, let alone a major public comprehensive research university. Kolb recalls that the university had a significant number of international students in the graduate programs, but very few at the undergraduate level during his 20-year tenure as director of admissions. “Like many other universities, we were interested in internationalizing the experience of our students, especially when they could not study abroad due to financial or academic reasons,” says Kolb. “We became aware of the United World College (UWC) network of schools and saw the potential of bringing these students who were very good at sharing their culture to the University of Florida.”

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Given that it would be politically unpopular to spend public funding on non-Floridian students, Kolb and his colleagues cobbled together a scholarship program from a variety of sources to fund UWC students. The result has been a steady and significant international undergraduate population at the University of Florida—not to mention more Gator graduates spread across the globe. The Future of International Recruiting and Admissions Membership in the Overseas Association for College Admission Counseling has grown by 58 percent in the last two years. This is reflective of both an increased number of students from across the globe, including American students, looking outside their home country for higher education as well as more universities looking to facilitate global education while off-setting declining budgets by enrolling more international students. And there will continue to be competition among nations to attract more college students, including Americans, says LePere: “We are seeing the growth of programs delivered entirely in English at national universities across Europe, the Middle East, and even Asia.” These institutions not only attract nationals who want to study in an American-style setting and in English, but they also appeal to U.S. citizens, many of whom have grown up in a foreign nation, and want to stay abroad to earn their college degree. Still, Liu believes the appeal of a U.S. college education will remain competitive on the world stage. “Education is the United States’ greatest export,” she says. “The expertise of faculty, the diversity of courses offered, the level of undergraduate research opportunities, the quality of the peer group, and a holistic admissions process greatly appeal to international families.” “Last but not least, we must remember that for students who seek access to an English-speaking higher education system and who have significant financial barriers to accessing higher education, the U.S. is the only country in the world where opportunity and access to higher education does not depend on wealth,” says Liu. According to EducationUSA, there are 183 institutions in the U.S. that offer need-based financial aid for extremely talented students coming from overseas. “International students cannot find the same opportunities in the UK, Canada, or Australia, which are the other countries that offer higher education in English and that also recruit large numbers of international students,” Liu says. Crowder agrees with Liu’s optimism. Having devoted his entire career to the field of international admissions and lived through the gentle ups and downs of the market for the past 25 years, he remains positive about the future. “Despite the significant growth in students going to other ‘receiver nations’ like the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, and several others, the number of international students hoping to matriculate at U.S. colleges and universities is growing,” he says. “The surge of the China and India markets and growth in countries like Vietnam, Turkey, Brazil, and others bodes well for the future. There are more places for students, more incentives to attract students, and more educational options for them to pursue.”

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Crowder concludes, “If a college is prepared to recruit internationally and support those students on campus, success is almost certainly guaranteed.” Sidebar: Challenges in International Recruiting Even when they also exist elsewhere, most of the challenges facing today’s international recruiters are discussed in the context of Asia—and more specifically, as it relates to working with Chinese students. A Rank-Centric Outlook The Chinese expect any institution to have a very high profile and a world-class reputation, and this stems from the way their education system is set up, explains David McCauley, currently the director of college counseling at Berkshire School (Massachusetts). Prior to this position, McCauley lived and worked in China, including at Beijing No. 4 High School, one of the most selective and prestigious schools in all of China. Gaining admission to colleges in China is based on a series of test scores that begin early in a child’s education. Ultimately, one test score, the Gaekao, determines the university you get into. “The higher the score, the better the university you get into,” explains McCauley. This idea of every university being ranked (and everyone knowing the ranking) is pervasive. This means that U.S. colleges that aren’t “Tier 1” or a household name must prove their value by other means. Similarly, Chinese students and families find it very difficult to understand the holistic process of U.S. college admissions. “In all my years in Beijing, I worked with very few families who were less rank focused,” says McCauley. “In some cases, the parents worked for foreign countries and traveled outside of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] regularly, and they were interested in finding a better fit for their student.” “In other cases, the students were either very comfortable with themselves or desperate to get out of China, so they would look at a variety of schools,” he says. Forged or Falsified Application Materials The über competitive nature of college admissions in China leads families and school officials to do “whatever it takes” to make sure their child progresses, explains McCauley. A report by the college search service Zinch estimates, based on their survey of students who had applied to foreign colleges, that 90 percent of students have submitted false recommendation letters, 70 percent had other people write their personal essays, and half of them submitted forged high school transcripts.

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Karen Kristof, senior associate director of admissions at Smith College (Massachusetts), says she has been warned about the credentials coming out of Asia by U.S. counselors who live and work there. “They say you really can’t trust anyone, anywhere. You hear about fake community service trips, adults writing essays for students, and more.” “It’s a such a change from how I was originally trained to look at applications—with an open heart,” she says. “But with international applications, I have to go into it with a skeptic’s mind.” The Use of Agents Agents are not a recent addition to international recruitment; in reality they have been a part of the scene for a long time in various parts of the world. However, the huge growth in the volume of students coming from China—and the fact that agents are an inherent part of the process in China—has brought the topic front and center in recent years. Again, this has its roots in Chinese culture and their system of promotion in education. “It begins with the fact that getting into the top universities in China is incredibly difficult, and most families start grooming their students from a very young age,” says McCauley. “Kids are tracked and vetted by the schools, so parents do what they can—from extra tutoring and test preparation to offering payoffs and favors.” Add to this the huge void in college counseling. “Families are simply looking for someone who can give them advice and answers,” he says, “and this is compounded by the fact that the Chinese believe that anything free has no value—including my advice as the school’s college counselor!” “It is a matter of culture,” explains consultant Jimm Crowder, former director of international admissions at Macalester College (Minnesota). “Parents and teachers want to do the best for their kids, and they trust people from their own culture to help their children gain admission to a college.” From the age of 13, Chinese students will typically go to school, come home and eat dinner, and then begin to study (or memorize) the SAT or TOEFL exams. “Having someone work with you, on your behalf, is a cultural expectation,” Crowder says. “The agent is seen as an extended member of the family in China.” The NACAC Assembly addressed the issue of agents in 2013 by adopting new rules to accommodate the use of commissioned agents in recruiting international students and publishing guidelines that address the issues of accountability, integrity, and transparency for colleges and universities. “People talk more about this in China, but agents are a problem elsewhere,” confirms Smith’s Kristof, who believes this is happening more in Vietnam as well as in India, where a strong consultant culture exists. “As people get more affluent, it seems like they are more likely to be exploited,” she says.

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Despite its prevalence in many countries and the fact that virtually all professional admissions organizations are debating the “agent” issue, Crowder warns colleges that “buyer beware.” He says, “When an agent is involved, the college has to ask the questions: Will the students be academically prepared? Will they assimilate into the campus community? Is their financial pledge sound?” Admitted Students Lacking Academic Preparation Even when the required TOEFL score is quite high, many international students often find reading, writing, and conversing in English to be a challenge. “At Smith, we have found that even our strongest Chinese students, who are brilliant at tests, find the way we do things—from class discussions to writing response papers to full length research papers—to be extremely challenging for them,” explains Kristof. As such, some first-year seminars cater to students who might not have English as a first language, and there is a real culture of encouraging all students to use the Writing Center. To better work with the large number of Chinese students enrolling at the University of Denver (Colorado), the institution’s English proficiency policy has experienced a complete metamorphosis in recent years, according to Marjorie S. Smith, director of international student admission. Regardless of their standardized test scores required for admission, international students are now retested with Denver’s own assessment of English proficiency when they arrive on campus to determine whether they should be required to enroll full-time in the University’s English Language Center before beginning their degree program.

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Government to close two in every five universities

By Eugene Vorotnikov :: University World News :: 17th April http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150417043945585

The number of Russian universities will be cut by 40% by the end of 2016, according to Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov. In addition, the number of university branches will be slashed by 80% in the same period. The institutions are being axed under a federal plan for the development of education during 2016 to 2020. Ministry of Education and Science data indicate that at present there are 593 state and 486 private universities, which have 1,376 and 682 branches respectively. Collectively, the universities cater for seven million students, of whom two million are holding state-funded places at an estimated average cost of US$3,500 per student. Livanov said the number of universities was five times higher now than during the days of the USSR and was too high: “This is mainly the result of the opening of a huge number of private universities during the 1990s. Unfortunately, the results of our monitoring showed that the quality of education provided by some of them is very poor. He said that some institutions acted as “offices for the sale of certificates that do not have an established training process and qualified teachers”. Mostly private universities The majority of cuts will affect private universities that provide a poor standard of education. This year, quality checks officially started on 10 March, and the results will be submitted to the Education Ministry by 30 May. An official spokesman for the ministry said it was a possible that some of the closed universities, including their infrastructure and teachers, could be absorbed by other regional universities that would continue to operate. The institutional rationalisation is part of the government's plan to establish strong federal universities located in the 10 different regions. Livanov said that at present there were 100-150 “good” private universities whose further development would be supported by the state. At the same time, the cuts would also affect some state-owned universities. Quality assessments

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As part of the plans, up to 100 universities will be subject to quality assessments over the next few months and this may result in some being closed. The process is set to be completed by the middle to the end of 2016. The latest plans have been welcomed by some of Russia’s leading employers. German Gref, President of Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank which employs about 240,000 workers, said the nation needed a transition to a new model of education. “At present, the majority of Russian students, teachers and employers are unhappy with the quality of higher education. In the case of employers, about 60% consider the quality of higher education in the country to be inadequate, and in need of improvement,” Gref said. “Despite this, Russia has the highest percentage of people with higher education degrees, which is 53.5%. During 2000-13, public spending on higher education increased by 21 times. Yet Russian universities have not yet to make it into the top 100 of any major global rankings.” The government has promised that salaries of teachers in national universities will not be cut, despite the complex financial situation and the already approved cuts in state funding of universities this year. Michael Alashkevich, director of the Education Ministry’s financial department, says the same provision for salaries will apply to scholarships. They will be paid in full, without any delays, Alashkevich said.

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