Web to sideline role of agents
TODAY'S students may become tomorrow's university recruiting agents on the social web.
TODAY'S students will be tomorrow's university recruiting agents on the social web, Swinburne University of Technology vice-chancellor Ian Young has predicted.
"Prospective students are getting more and more information on universities from sites like Facebook," he said. "In the future, existing students in some respect will become recruiting agents for universities."
Professor Young was commenting on concerns about the growing dependence of universities on costly education agents, to be raised today at a key conference.
"What is concerning is the increased reliance on agents, where more than 60 per cent of commencing international higher education students now come through agents," education consultant Alan Olsen told the HES ahead of his presentation at the Australian International Education Conference in Melbourne.
"You don't have to use agents to get big ... it is surprising to see 60 per cent need an agent."
His research for the Australian Universities International Directors' Forum found that the share of overseas students recruited through agents increased from 48.1 per cent in 2004 to 62.3 per cent last year.
Universities spent $219.4 million last year on attracting overseas students, including $66.4million on fees to education agents. The cost for each overseas student was $3238. Universities earned $1.96 billion in fees from international students.
Although the institution with the biggest number of overseas students recruited more than 80per cent of those through agents, the next three biggest operators relied on agents for 50per cent or fewer of their students.
"(This) suggests that a large international student program does not in every case require a high proportion of starts with commission," the report says.
Mr Olsen, director of Hong Kong-based consultancy Strategy Policy and Research in Education, said universities could look to the web to reduce agency dependence. Generation Y students were incredibly internet savvy, he said.
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship already allows online student visa applications from countries deemed low risk by the federal Government.
US-based education consultant Daniel Guhr said social websites such as Facebook and MySpace would become bigger players in international student recruitment.
Education agents would have a different task as the marketing role of those sites increased. "In many cases (the role of agents) will diminish," Dr Guhr said.
Prospective students could find out a great deal about an institution through alumni and student groups on a site such as Facebook, which has 45 million users.
"You can pose questions about what the library is like or the course is like," Dr Guhr said.
"You can get direct feedback from people who are not from theuniversity's recruitment department."
Ian Young said Swinburne recognised the power of online communities as a marketing tool and had its own Facebook page but it was vital to use various recruitment methods.
"We certainly use agents and we think that they are an effective way of connecting to students and getting our message across,'' Professor Young said.
"But we are certainly looking at other ways, including direct recruitment through our website and also other pathways through feeder programs.''
Deputy vice-chancellor (international) David Goodman said the University of Technology, Sydney, used education agents as well as other pathways such as twinning programs and feeder institutions: "We can be sure of the quality if they come through our pathways.''
But Professor Goodman said agents were also a very effective and necessary way to recruit students.
"One of the problems is that in some countries, like China, we are virtually forced to go through agents, so there are no other options,'' he said. "We are not allowed to have recruitment offices in China, no one is ... so there is no other way.'' IDP International, an agent part-owned by 38 universities that brings in 20 per cent of all international students to Australia, said it was in effect the marketing arm of many Australian institutions.
Up to 40 per cent of international students were recruited within Australia; recruitment from China and India was heavily reliant on agents.
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