International Student Recruiting with Agents

A growing number of American universities are considering the use of agents to support their international student recruiting efforts. Interest in American education comes from all corners of the globe and most institutions can’t afford the costs to send staff to meet the demand. Agents can help fill this gap and help all types of institutions ranging from high school, English language training, undergraduate, graduate and professional schools.

Educational Consultancies (Agents) are often well established, long-standing businesses that are known and understood by the communities they serve. An agent will typically represent multiple universities and offer their services at a fixed cost, as well as the more popular fee per successful placement. Agents range in size and scope and their operating practices can at times challenge the admissions guidelines and professional practices of the institution they represent. This has the potential to present significant risk to the institution’s reputation and brand. Misbehavior from an agent also has the potential to impact the university’s standing with visa officials and can jeopardize all international recruiting.

If structured properly, the use of agents brings credibility and awareness of a university to global markets without significant costs in branding and marketing. The best agents are your partners and can uncover new niche markets and become your eyes and ears in the local markets. Agent partnerships brings a practical fiscal dimension to student recruitment as agents are paid upon successful placement of students and are looking out for their best interest by helping the institution succeed in the local market.

Recent lifting of the negative stigma around agent use has led many institutions to consider their use in international student recruiting strategies. As the number of institutions wanting to use agents rises, there is significant competition to be represented by reputable agents. To win the endorsement from agents, institutions should know their competition from the international perspective and be able to present a package that not only profiles the institution, it helps frame a successful business plan. To implement a successful agent program an institution should prepare a well-defined process for selection, operational support and quality control.

Our Agent Program Start-up Service is a consultative process to help design and develop policies and procedures to build successful relationships with agents. The process is led by Mark Shay, who has built agent portfolios for market leading agents such as: IDP Education, QS Advance (Now Manya Group), AECC Global and most recently StudySquare where Mark still serves as a senior advisor.

A successful Agent Program needs a complete package to succeed.  We help tailor marketing material to solicit agents and manage the applications/enrollments those agents generate. We help establish university policies around agent use, guide a process to evaluate and engage agents, plus help establish safeguards around quality. The service is designed to guide universities through the start-up of an agent program; to help universities understand and manage the risk of using agents, and harness the reward that the agent business model presents.

Our process involves:

• Market Research: analyze your university’s marketability overseas
• Competitor Identification: explore what students and agents think of your university
• Prime Competitor Analysis and use of Agents: set benchmarks with competing institutions
• Establish Agent Offer: develop Agent Handbook and marketing plan for agents
• Prepare University for Agents: share and establish “Best Practice” documents, end-to-end process review, staff training and orientation
• Solicit, Screen and Nominate Agents: oversee initial solicitation process to draw agents
• Long-Term Business Opportunities: recommend future opportunities and new initiatives

As a custom consulting engagement, we can also help revitalize an existing agent program or help new administrations re-evaluate a program that seems to have lost its competitive edge. Our services are based on a wealth of experience working for agents and institutions with led by Mark and his team.