The long-simmering debate over the ethics of paying overseas student recruiters is threatening to boil over.
American colleges could be forced to choose between contracting with international-recruitment agents, who supporters say are a critical conduit for students in an increasingly crowded global education market, and maintaining their standing in the primary U.S. membership organization for admissions officials. That group, the National Association for College Admission Counseling, released a proposed policy statement last month, which, if approved by its members, would expressly forbid colleges from using commission-based agents to recruit domestically or internationally. Colleges that do could be subject to sanctions.
At the annual meeting here this week of Nafsa: Association of International Educators, the admissions group’s potential policy change is being received uneasily by college officials and overseas counselors alike. Hundreds of conferencegoers packed a Tuesday afternoon session on overseas recruiting.
“I think you have to be careful, when you’re talking about revoking membership,” said David G. Arredondo, director of international student services at Lorain County Community College, in Ohio. His institution has used agents since late 2007. “I hope we won’t see it going that far.”
Still, for all the concern, questions at the panel discussion about how to best find reputable partner agencies outnumbered those about the likely effect of any new guidelines put out by NACAC, as the admissions organization is commonly known.
There are multiple workshops and panel discussions on working with international recruiters throughout the weeklong Nafsa meeting. On a quick glance through the cavernous conference hall, agents from around the globe could be spotted exchanging business cards with promising clients.
Surya Ganesh Valmiki, one of those agents, said that, despite the NACAC proposal, he felt American colleges were becoming more receptive to using agents.
“I do worry. It’s definitely, definitely not acceptable,” Mr. Valmiki said of the policy proposal. “We have been sidelined, but it is changing,” said Mr. Valmiki, leader of the Valmiki Group, a recruiting agency based in Hyderabad, India.
Crossing a Line?
Working with private recruiters has long been common practice in other countries, particularly Australia. But it has been slow to take hold in the United States.
That has begun to change in the past several years, however, as global competition for top students has heated up and as American colleges seek to expand overseas enrollments to internationalize their campuses and bolster their bottom lines through full-fee-paying students.
NACAC has been weighing the proposed policy change for more than two years, and the revision was drafted and discussed by the group’s Admission Practices Committee and its board of directors. The statement, which is open for comment through June 20, also reflects feedback from members, said David A. Hawkins, NACAC’s director of public policy and research.
The proposed policy would not ban the use of all private-sector recruiters abroad. Rather, it would prohibit American colleges from paying overseas agents on a per-student basis. That practice already is illegal in the United States, and the change would bring domestic and international policy in line.
“As a matter of principle,” Mr. Hawkins said, “there is no distinction between a commission for a domestic student and a commission for an international student.”
Paying a commission, Mr. Hawkins argued in an e-mail exchange, creates problems because it “incentivizes” the recruitment agent to “marginalize the student’s interest.” Students often do not have sufficient information to make knowledgeable decisions, making them more reliant on agents, who could misrepresent themselves or their U.S. college affiliations.
“Over all, we believe the use of commissioned agents is a line beyond which it becomes almost inevitable that problems will arise at potentially great cost to students,” Mr. Hawkins said.
Among the critics of using agents is Shaun McElroy, a high-school counselor at the Shanghai American School. He said he regularly fields questions from students and parents considering hiring a private recruiter and advises them against doing so.
In six years in China, he has seen many bad actors, such as a private consulting agency in Shanghai that advertised it would “write your admission essay until it is right.”
Other agents, Mr. McElroy said, charge a consulting fee to students and take a commission from colleges, a practice he likened to a real-estate agent who gets paid by both buyer and seller.
“If an agent can get paid both ways, why would they not choose to show you those houses,” he said in an e-mail message. “Welcome to the subprime crisis.”
If anything, Mr. McElroy would like to see the NACAC policy strengthened, to include requirements that both colleges and private recruiters clearly and prominently disclose any relationships.
More Rules, Less Transparency?
But some proponents of using agents say they fear that if the NACAC board adopts the policy statement, it could actually make the process less transparent.
Mitch Leventhal is vice chancellor for global affairs at the State University of New York and a founder of the American International Recruitment Council, a group formed three years ago to set standards for and credential overseas agents. A prohibition on paying commissions, he argues, could result in colleges resorting to “work arounds,” like signing on with agents through third parties or entering into “convoluted” compensation structures, such as the payment of marketing fees.
Per-student commissions, paid to the recruiter by the U.S. institution, make the payment arrangements clear and take the expense off the shoulders of students and parents, he said.
“It could drive the agents underground,” Mr. Leventhal said, “and that’s not a good thing.”
During Tuesday’s panel discussion, Mr. Leventhal, a speaker, also suggested that if the policy goes forward, colleges could be forced to make tough choices. For example, he said, 29 of SUNY’s 64 campuses use agents. Would they have to choose between honoring those contracts and having access to the domestic college fairs and recruitment opportunities organized through NACAC?
That could lead, Mr. Leventhal suggested, to legal action to halt any implementation of the policy.
For NACAC’s part, Mr. Hawkins said only that, in keeping with current practice, violations reported to the organization’s admission-practices committee would be adjudicated and a decision made whether enforcement action was warranted.
Despite his opposition to the policy change, Mr. Leventhal said in an interview that he welcomed NACAC’s decision to issue a clear policy statement. The “ambiguity” in the group’s stance on overseas agents, he said, “always has been a damper on colleges acting.”
“At least, there will be resolution,” he said. “This will bring clarity.”
