3 Business Reasons why International Student Recruitment will Benefit your School or University.

There are over 4.8 million internationally-mobile students in the world today. That’s millions of students who are actively searching for the right school or university in a country outside that in which they live (are domiciled). And that number is increasing every year, as students and parents become more aware of the many benefits of international study and experience. So, these students are looking for you, but will they find you? Here are three key reasons why, if you’re not already actively marketing to and recruiting students from international markets - you should start NOW.

1. Revenue.

   International education today is a multi-billion pound business. Yep, you read that right - multi-BILLION. In the UK’s Higher Education market alone, over 440,000 international students travel to study in the UK every year. These students and their visitors generate over £25 billion in on and off-campus spending, creating and supporting 206,000 full-time jobs. And students from outside of the EU pay a higher tuition fee for university studies - generating even more revenue per student than ‘home’ students. While the number of international students studying in UK schools is much lower (over 54,000 non-British nationals currently study in UK independent schools), there is still an incredible amount of revenue to be made by schools and their surrounding areas, by recruiting international students. As more students clamour to gain the sought-after university places in the UK, so more are also searching for places in UK schools, in order to gain the qualifications and English level required to do so. Schools need to take advantage of this, and follow the Higher Education market’s lead in recruiting from overseas.

2. Academic growth.

   Imagine. You’ve spent the last how many years competing with the school in the next village, or the university in the next town. You both recruit from the same, local pot of students. Maybe even some from further afield on specialist scholarships. And these are great students - maybe their family members have attended for generations. They are intelligent, hard-working, and have helped make the institution what it is today. But, they are only so many (perhaps 100s or even 1000s), and all the nearby institutions are also vying for them to choose their school or university. The growth in numbers, and in how many students will therefore achieve top grades, is limited. Now imagine, you open up your doors to recruiting international students. There’s a whole world out there - over 4.8 million of them are actively looking for an institution just like yours. And these are also intelligent, hard-working students. Perhaps even more motivated due to the investment (financially, emotionally) of studying overseas and all the sacrifices that involves for both parents and students. Say in one year, just 10 of those students find you and choose to study with you. By the time exam results or student employment surveys are released, you are likely to have even more students achieving those top grades, or top jobs. Instead of 50 students achieving the very top grades, maybe 55 do. And just like that, your exam result % improves. You have more students, and more of them achieve the very top academic success. Which leads me to…

3. League Table success.

   It goes hand in hand with academic growth. The better the results, the greater chance you have of jumping up the league tables or university rankings. You know well that the higher up the rankings you are, the greater chance of recruiting (locally and internationally) the brightest students. Particularly in markets such as Asia, where the prestige and ranking of an institution goes a long way in choosing where to study. And that’s a very important market - 1 out of 5 of all international students in the UK are Chinese nationals, for example. That’s before we even look at Hong Kong and Malaysia. And so it self-perpetuates. A positive cycle.

If you’re interested to find out how to start recruiting international students, please contact Emma who will be pleased to advise you: efell@attenger.com.