College Admissions Officers Deeply Divided Over Use of Agents to Recruit Foreign Students

The majority of non-profit four-year colleges do not use third-party agencies to recruit international students, primarily because they are against the practice “on principle,” the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) found in a survey it conducted of its membership last fall. The results of the survey show that many college admissions officers harbor deep concerns about a strategy that is becoming more common as public universities, facing declining state revenues, are increasingly seeking to attract foreign students who are able to pay full freight.

Because some colleges are reluctant to go to the expense of sending their own admissions officers overseas for long stretches, they often rely on international recruitment agents to find the students for them. Most of these schools pay the agents a commission for each of their students that enroll. While there are undoubtedly many reputable agents, there are also plenty of unscrupulous ones who, according to a recent Bloomberg News investigation, “often misrepresent and conceal their U.S. affiliations,” and offer false promises to lure in students.

As we reported last week, NACAC is considering expressly barring its members from providing per-student commissions to recruiters abroad. The group argues that rewarding recruiters for their success in enrolling students simply invites abuse -- as the one and only incentive these individuals have is to reel in students, regardless of whether it is in the students’ best interest. The organization’s stance has provoked a firestorm of controversy among a portion of its members, who say that banning such practices would cripple the ability of colleges to recruit foreign students.

To bring more clarity to the debate, NACAC surveyed its 1,246 four-year post-secondary institutional members late last year on their international recruiting efforts. Altogether, 428, or about 34 percent, of the schools responded to the survey.

The association found that 22 percent of the colleges employed agents to recruit international students. Of this group, only two percent of those schools relied exclusively on these individuals to do this work for them. The remaining 20 percent reported that they used both agents and their own admissions staff for this purpose. The survey, however, did not ask these institutions to be more specific about how they divided up these duties.

Meanwhile, 78 percent of the schools said that they had never used agents. Of these institutions, 51 percent said that they relied entirely on their own admissions officers to recruit foreign students, and 27 percent reported that they did not engage in any international recruiting.

The survey then asked these colleges why they don’t use agents. Nearly 60 percent said that they “have never used agents based on principle,” and another seven percent reported that they haven’t because they don’t trust them. Most of the rest said that they do not employ agents because they cannot afford to do so.

Of the colleges that do hire agents, 57 percent reported that they provide per-student payments to these recruiters. Most reward the agents for their success in enrolling students, but a small share (5 percent) pay a commission for each student that simply applies to the institution. Interestingly, about 20 percent said that they pay agents “a flat fee” for their services, and the remaining 23 percent said they had “other arrangements” with the agents.

Overall the survey shows that there are deep divisions among admissions officers about these practices, with a significant number saying they are wary of such arrangements.

The Chronicle of Higher Education made these divisions clear in a series of essays it published last week on this topic. In one of the essays, Ronald Cushing, the director of international services for the University of Cincinnati, spoke out against the NACAC proposal, explaining that paying incentive compensation to international agents has been integral to his institution’s success in attracting foreign students, who most likely never would have heard of the institution otherwise. “Ultimately the answer to this debate is not to prohibit commission-based recruitment,” he wrote. “The answer involves setting high professional standards and best practices for institutions and the agencies themselves.”

On the other side was Marjorie Smith, the associate dean of international-student admission at the University of Denver, who endorsed NACAC’s proposal, saying that it would “preserve the integrity of the college selection process.”  She took particular aim at one of the key arguments that some admissions officials have made in fighting the association’s plan: that banning the use of incentive compensation for international agents would put U.S. colleges at a competitive disadvantage to countries like Australia and England that have been aggressively pursuing this strategy.

 “Both countries have damaged the reputations of their higher education systems by using agents, with the perception being that they are seeking students oversees primarily for the money,” she wrote. “The Unites States is not immune to this damage, and no amount of ethical standards adopted by American associations will stop the charlatans.” In addition, she warned colleges that “shortsighted strategies like this one can very quickly bring you long-term headaches that end up costing you plenty in reputation and bad PR.”

At Higher Ed Watch, we couldn’t agree more. As we wrote last week, colleges should not allow expediency and the promise of great riches cloud their better judgment. Providing per-student commissions to international agents, who otherwise have no real ties or loyalty to the schools, is a recipe for scandal.