Why Traditional International Recruitment Could Cost Universities Their Future
With deficits on the rise, universities must rethink traditional international student recruitment practices.
Video: a university agrees with one of its agents the supply of 20 UG Mechanical Engineers for January 2025 in return for 14.4% commission per qualified student the agent places. The agent had offered to source 35 students.
The agent is now contractually bound to source these 20 qualified students for this university, instead of passively flicking applications to its admissions team. The university chose which of its agents to show this recruitment opportunity (and which not).
How to capture more international student load, sooner.
With deficits on the rise, universities must rethink traditional international student recruitment practices.
As many teams' headcounts are being cut to save costs, it’s vital universities & agents can reduce admin burdens & stay responsive [1 min read]
This one's for the lurkers who want to know what Feezy is and isn't [2.5 mins]
For 15 years our Founder led global recruitment for universities in the UK and Australia, incl. Russell Group and Group of Eight institutions.
He's able to discuss the needs of your institution. Meetings generally take 15-20 mins.
Your org probably puts 80% of its effort and spend into finding the largest student sources (biggest markets, largest demand areas). Good, because that's smart today. But this leaves niche areas under-served -- we let you find these niche students more easily.
The traditional agent dynamic has delivered a spread environment for agents. It's the reason your contracts will stipulate max. number of applications per student (good luck enforcing this). You need to constrain supply & drive % conversion in a more deliberate way.
Do you have readily-controllable taps to tighten and loosen re: agent supply? Maybe an Indian state's visa declines skyrocket, or perhaps several agents over-supply a program area with applications (swamping colleagues there). You need greater discretionary control.
Have you analysed and forecast the point at which it becomes impossible to continue at this rate? With inflationary pressures, upward agent commission percentages, and the increased cost of every stage of recruitment (plus largely frozen tuition fees), this date mightn't be too far off.
Time to change the way you do business?
When an organisation has a largely undifferentiated, passive approach to sourcing a commodity, it's going to end up with more of the most common variants that ecosystem offers.
As with agent-supplied students today. Getting more applications - proportionately - from some markets vs others? Change your structures a little to mitigate the risks and develop a truly global campus.
You've got precious few options to achieve this today. Recruit more students? Sure, but at what margin in today's pay-to-play environment? There are only so many discounts that can be disguised as scholarships before your market starts to sense neediness. And since your competitors are all doing it too, your market pretty quickly morphs to become the target audience of the next tier up.