Australia’s largest and most successful international student-recruitment company announced on Tuesday that it is branching out into the United States. It is coming, though, not as a competitor to American universities, it says, but as a potential business partner.
IDP Education, which recruits one of every five international students who studies in Australia, is billing its services as a cost-effective way for American universities to extend their reach overseas. The company has a network of 850 staff members in 75 offices across 24 countries. They recruit approximately 34,000 students to Australia’s colleges, vocational institutions, and English-language programs each year.
Anthony Pollock, IDP’s chief executive, who unveiled the initiative here at the annual conference of Nafsa: Association of International Educators, says the 40-year old company offers something that American universities lack: a sustained presence overseas. Although the United States remains the most popular destination for international students, he notes, other countries with more aggressive recruitment strategies—Australia in particular—have steadily cut into its market share in the last decade or so.
“The U.S. has underperformed against the competition for some time,” he said. “Most of the growth in the international-student market is happening in other countries.”
Independent recruiters have long been used by Australian and British universities and are now starting to make inroads into the American market. What makes IDP’s announcement unusual, though, is that the company is partially owned by Australia’s 38 public universities. (Their partner is a publicly traded company, SEEK Limited.) Until 2006, in fact, IDP was a nonprofit organization entirely owned by the university system.
Mr. Pollock says the new business strategy is not as unusual as it may seem. Surveys have shown that international students who want to study in Australia tend not to want to study in the United States, and vice versa. He also thinks the pool of internationally mobile students is growing fast enough that IDP offices can recruit for American universities without cutting into the Australian market.
In April, IDP hired Mark Shay to lead the U.S. effort. Mr. Shay is the founder of StudyAbroad.com and GradSchools.com, which he sold in 2006.
Mr. Shay says the company aims to have 60 American colleges on board in time to recruit for the 2010-11 academic year. The universities would contract with IDP to represent them abroad and pay a finder’s fee for each student who enrolls at their institution. Students pay a nominal fee for counseling and help in document preparation, he said.
As part of this new push, IDP is training its overseas staff to understand the American higher-education system and hiring new staff members with experience in the United States.
Independent recruiters face widespread mistrust in the United States, though, as many educators here remain uncomfortable with the idea of paying agents to bring in students from abroad.
IDP is hoping its track record and its history with Australia’s universities can overcome some of that suspicion. It is also participating in a pilot program just announced by the American International Recruitment Council to certify overseas recruiters (see a related article).
