The Long Overdue Digital Revolution in Higher Ed is Suddenly Here

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In March of 2020, the higher education industry was hit by a shock.  Facing risks of widespread infection through the coronavirus, universities elected to take the safe route and cancel traditional classes and move student learning to online as a temporary (backup) measure.  Just about every college and university president issued a decree that classes on campus will be cancelled and students will continue their studies online.  It sounds simple enough and for some academic divisions who invested in teams of instructional designers, assessment developers and online learning experts, the transition will be quite easy.  For these marquee programs, this move will have minimal impact on student learning and students might even welcome this move and benefit from it.  For other programs, going online is causing chaos.  Faculty who have resisted the move to digital are now forced to figure it out.  Students who complained that courses were not digitally enhanced, will finally start to see change.  Shocks like this create opportunity for real change.  The promise of a better, more engaging, more affordable educational system has yet to be fully realized, but that time is now. 

To understand how college presidents might think their institutions are ready to teach online, an article in the NY Times nicely sums up the current state of online education.  Twenty-some years ago higher education went through a time of dramatic transition when a new medium called the Internet started to disrupt the college business.  The notion that courses could be offered with a high degree of independence and be could be completed from a distance was a not only a novel concept, it made great business sense.  Students without access to a campus could now pursue a degree, and those whose lives were unable to accommodate commutes to the classroom could now have the classroom brought to them.  It was the early years of online education when pioneers like Glenn Jones and John Sperling brought radical change and rocked the foundation of “the academy.”  At the time, these two were vilified in higher education circles.

Glenn Jones brought us Jones International University which in 1999 became the first fully online university in the U.S. to be regionally accredited.  This decision caused outrage across higher education.  The American Association of University Professors tried to stop the accreditation on the grounds that the teaching staff had no academic freedom.  John Sperling’s University of Phoenix rose to become the giant in online education.  At its peak University of Phoenix was the top recipient of student financial aid funds (receiving $2.48 billion in 2008) and the student body received more Pell Grant money ($656.9 million) than any other university.  By 2010, the University of Phoenix had an enrollment of more than 470,000 students with revenues of $4.95 billion, evidence that online education was here to stay.

What made these institutions different was the scale and flexibility they brought to higher education.  Many of the early pioneers in online education were for-profit organizations that introduced a number of new, student-focused services that catered to asynchronous learning and adult learners.  In the early days of online education, these companies thrived driven by a concept that the student is THE customer and the administration of their educational experience should be customer-focused.  Traditional universities were stuck in a faculty-focused mindset and for many faculty, the different needs of online learners weren’t of interest.

Fast forward to early 2020 and the higher education industry has turned many of the innovative practices from the turn of the century into standard practice.  Several disciplines have seized this digital conversion as a competitive advantage, none greater than medical schools where every lecture is captured online and available for streaming both live and on demand.  Large percentages of courses are taught online and some of our nation’s most prestigious universities now offer fully online degrees.  Just about every higher education institution has a Learning Management System today, and a fair percentage of faculty are fully utilizing it.  There is a gradual move to deliver course material in digital format through these LMS systems, although assessments are lagging behind.   There are however a large number of faculty that have not joined the digital evolution and continue to hold up full-scale adoption of LMS, digital course material and online assessments.  For those professors, the sudden shift to online is indeed a shock.  They have no contingency plans, never considered having to teach outside the comforts of a lecture hall and lectern.

Getting all programs and all courses online will not be easy and will certainly not be smooth.  Institutional leaders have issued the mandate.  Division and department heads are faced with tough decisions.  Faculty that has hidden from today’s digital demands with their claims of “Academic Freedom” will now have to use that same “Academic Freedom” protection to cover their awkward ways of getting through this semester.  Students are being called to rise to the occasion and go fully digital, which for many, will also be a challenge.  Now that everyone is forced to do it, we will all have to get through it and there lies the silver lining to this very dark cloud.

Students who overcome these challenges will be better prepared for the workplace of tomorrow.  Faculty who finally go digital will, in the long-term become better at connecting with their students.  Institutions who can turn these final obstacles into lessons learned will benefit by developing more engaging and effective learning methods.  Institution that succeed in capturing the best practices and boost their online platforms will be better prepared for future shocks.  Education leaders should now think of online platforms in their disaster planning, a kind of emergency management tool that kicks into gear when on campus venues are unavailable.  Think of an analogy to emergency electric generators turning on when the power goes out.  One day we will look back on the Spring of 2020 and attribute the disruption caused by the corona virus to profound advances in the way we deliver higher education.  When we get through this, we will finally say that digital has finally revolutionized the way in which we teach.

Agents are an important part of International Education

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Over the past couple of months, I have been helping a new education agency get their start in the American market. This becomes the fourth time I’ve done this which seems to put me in the expert category. My first gig in the agent world came with IDP Education, then QS, then AEGG Global and now Study Square.

People say these are especially trying times in international education and international student recruitment, but from my take, this is nothing new. International markets are always a roller coaster ride and always in flux. In student recruiting, “all things are local” meaning that local economic and political conditions affect overseas markets more than anything else. Decisions relating to further education are driven by variables as wide ranging as currency values, political turmoil, economic conditions and natural disasters.

From the university side, the global status comes from the sum total of all local conditions. It seems that when one source country rises, another source country seems to falter, when one destination country rises another tends to fall. Source markets have destination preferences, and those preferences are often turned into economic realities based on world events, with local and global impact.

Today, China is down as a source country, and until last month it was looking as if China would be challenging the USA as a top destination market (by volume). Student numbers to the USA from Vietnam continues to rise, but enrollment from Saudi Arabia has fallen significantly. Brexit means what? Will British universities loose some of current their popularity? Understanding these global events and the impact it has for an individual university is a never-ending challenge, which is why more and more universities are looking for help. One source of help comes from education agents. Through all this flux, all these ups and downs, agents are a consistent force and effective partners for universities worldwide.

Agents can be your eyes and ears in a local market. Good agents are hard to find, take time to develop, stand with you in good times and in bad, and good agents stand the test of time. Agents are intermediaries who work to serve students as their primary goal, deriving revenue from universities for their work. Remember that in the agent model, students gain by having a local source of expertise who can provide support and direction during their search for an overseas university. The universities benefit by having a local presence and local representative and the agent receives fees from the university in support of those efforts.

In Australia, the source of many of the world’s most successful international education ventures, international students make up more than 30% of all higher education enrollment. Driving this industry is a vibrant network of education agents.  ICEF reports that 75% of inbound international students use agents. That number is even higher from countries like Brazil, Colombia and Nepal, markets in which use of agents run 92%, 89%, and 84% respectively. In the largest markets 73% of Chinese students in Australia were placed by agents, as were 72% of Indian students.

Australia is well known for creating a national code (legislation) that include provisions for agent practice and recently agents have responded by creating what is essentially a trade association designed to be a body that represents their side. Called ISEAA, the International Student Education Agents Association advances the agent practice in a collective effort to raise their standing with the Australian government and their school clients. Agents are often owned by entities outside Australia and before ISEAA they had little say inside Australia. This is especially relevant when changes and uncertainties are brought about by government departments and educational organizations and associations. In Australia, ISEAA has assisted the education agent industry by holding meetings with governments bodies, associations, and hosting events to promote and advocate for their industry. I would expect to see something like this in the USA in future years.

The agent business serving the US market has risen significantly over the 12 years since AIRC (the body that provides certification for agents operating in the USA) was founded. Shortly after AIRC was formed, IDP entered the market and is flourishing. To give you a sense of size, IDP has “gone public,” is listed on the Australia Stock Exchange, and IDP is now valued around $4.3 billion. Several Chinese education conglomerates whose services include agent representation are listed on American stock markets and have valuations greater than IDP. Efforts to stop the use of agents by organizations like NACAC and Middle States have failed. Even EducationUSA, a government entity that had been an ardent foe of agents, has changed their tune (at least at the top) and EducationUSA is looking for ways to include agencies in the promotion of American higher education.

Agents are important to the American higher education sector. We don’t know for certain the size of the agent market serving the USA. Because there is no collective voice for agents serving US institutions and no efforts made to track their impact, any estimate is truly speculative, so here is my guess:

  • Just under 400,000 international students start their studies in the USA each year.
  • A reasonable estimate is that 25% of incoming international students are served by an agent
  • An industry average for placement fees is $2,500/student
  • Estimated agent revenue is therefore $250 million per year
  • Average tuition and fees for an international student in the USA is $30,000/year
  • Agent-sourced students provide a $3 billion boost to American higher education.

Adding to that, international students spend on a wide variety of things that range from tacos, to theater tickets, to new cars. NAFSA’s analysis finds that international students studying at U.S. colleges and universities contributed $41 billion and supported 458,290 jobs to the U.S. economy.

In conclusion, education agents matter:

  • If you are reading this as a university staff member, tasked with raising foreign enrollments, you should recognize that education agents constitute a vibrant and very powerful industry.
  • If you are in the agent world, know that your impact is important and the trend in the US is to value your work.
  • If you are in government, please see the use of agents as a key lever in the growth of a very important industry in the USA.

Study Square

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Study Square contacted us to help start an international agent business. An agent startup in Nepal needed help introducing U.S. universities and colleges to students applying from Nepal

AIRC education

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AIRC Conference Brochure

Marketing and information for the AIRC Education Conference was to design the main conference brochure. Previous brochure covers that had been created were generic text based designs. This year the conference organizers wanted something that reflected more of the feel of Miami.

Illustrations were created for the cover artwork and the inside graphics as well. Next step was to organize the schedule and session information while keeping with the fun upbeat design.

Look through the brochure below!

https://issuu.com/sherryshay/docs/airc_2016_conf_brochure_for_app