International recruitment – Are education agents welcome?

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. Attributed to Mark Twain (1835-1910)

While the United States State Department’s backpedalling from a long-standing policy against working with education agents is hardly surprising coming from an administration in which money seems to trump all, it does raise questions about the form this cooperation might take around the world.

And while many colleagues, including a cabal of vocal and self-interested advocates of commission-based recruitment, view this development as a victory and vindication, it might very well be yet another example of following the well-trodden path of expediency without adequately considering the consequences, not all positive.

One has the distinct feeling that the gate has finally opened and the barbarians are eager to stream in. But even in a nation of hustlers, it’s really not all about money, is it?

Of course, as with any policy, the devil is in the details. What does it really mean to "welcome agents to EducationUSA events"? Which agents? Which events? What does it mean to work with agents? Again, which agents? There are a lot of (agent) apples in the barrel and unfortunately many are rotten to varying degrees, including to the core. The answers to these questions will determine the value, ethical and otherwise, of this new policy.

We’d do well to heed the words of caution expressed by international education éminence grise, Philip G Altbach, founding director of Boston College’s Center for International Higher Education, who said in an interview that he was unsurprised by EducationUSA’s about-face, given what he described as the Trump administration’s open-market emphasis, with “no concern about standards and quality”.

“Hyper-commercialisation and market orientation – every little part of the Trump administration is headed in that direction, so I’m not at all surprised that EducationUSA is giving up the ghost,” he said.

Inevitable subpar outcomes for students

The “problems with the basic concept of agents” to which Professor Altbach referred was the focus of an October 2018 article entitled “An ethical approach to commissions-based recruitment” that we co-authored.

In this essay we don’t throw the education agent baby out with the bathwater but, rather, zero in on the fatal flaw in conventional commissions-based recruitment, namely, that most agents prioritise their partner universities’ interests over those of the students and parents they advise, meaning they treat partners as their clients, not students and parents.

The end result is that most guide or, in many cases, drive students to their partner universities because of the gold (commission) at the end of the rainbow (enrolment process).

The EducationUSA policy on commission-based agents, which has yet to be revised or removed from the EducationUSA website, official assurances notwithstanding, contains the money sentence, pun intended (our italics): “EducationUSA advising centres offer accurate, current and comprehensive information about the full range of higher education opportunities available at accredited US higher education institutions.

“Consistent with this goal, EducationUSA advisers refrain from partnering with any recruitment agent who receives compensation in the form of a per-student commission from an institution in which a student enrols following recruitment by the agent.

“Agents receiving compensation under such an arrangement cannot be expected to give priority to a student’s need to explore the full range of options provided by the diversity of US higher education.”

There you have it, the fatal flaw, the Achilles heel of traditional agency-based recruitment, the deal breaker for many who are concerned about quality and ethics. Indeed, a powerful if underappreciated argument against how commissioned-based recruitment is ordinarily conducted is the inevitability and actuality of subpar outcomes for countless thousands of international students.

When commission earnings distort advising, students often end up in environments that are anything but optimal. They survive, rather than thrive, at institutions that aren’t best fits, but minimally adequate ones. Surely, we can do better.

More ethical models

The fact is there are more ethical models, proven and better approaches that result in a triple-win for students and parents, educational institutions and education agents alike. Advancing such models should be our goal as a profession, not staking out diametrically opposed positions that consist of either vehement condemnation or enthusiastic endorsement.

One such approach unequivocally recognises students and parents as the clients in the educational advising process. In such a student-as-client model, the customer is king or queen, and advisers do not pressure students to attend partner universities simply because they pay a per head commission.

Rather, they create a list of best-fit institutions based on student interests, goals, preferences and ability to pay. If the student ends up attending a commission-paying partner university, the advising fee is refunded to the parents. If s/he attends a non-partner institution, the company retains the advising fee. This approach makes sense from both an ethical and financial perspective.

You are the university company you keep – the agent’s perspective

Another key point that has been overlooked is what type of US institutions agents should work with, especially at the higher education level.

The US exports some of the world’s best and worst higher education because of the nature of its accreditation system and the ability of low and no standard schools to operate with negligible to non-existent quality assurance or maintenance. Agents should exercise considerable caution in choosing their partners accordingly. (How many do, we wonder?)

It would be a step in the right direction if EducationUSA-supported agents were required to work exclusively with regionally accredited colleges and universities, the gold standard of institutional accreditation.

This would necessitate a change in existing policy because EducationUSA currently works with all accredited colleges and universities, which encompasses quite a rogue’s gallery of institutions, including those that have national accreditation - mostly for-profit, career-oriented education companies.

A move to working with regionally accredited colleges and universities only is not something that will happen under the current administration. But today’s debased political environment is all the more reason to make this point loud and clear.

Constructive engagement

There is much the US can learn from the activities of friendly competitor countries, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, which have a head start in the professional use of education agents. Why not play an active role in the hopes of having a positive influence on selected education agents that recruit for the US market?

For example, Australia’s Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) Act, and the related National Code of Practice for Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students, are the gold standard of international student recruitment-related legislation. Yet the Australian government isn’t resting on its laurels regarding quality assurance.

Later this year, Australia’s Department of Education and Training will publish performance data on agents on a public website. The stated goals of doing so are giving educational institutions agent performance data, allowing “students to assess the performance of a specific agent” and allowing “agents to benchmark their performance against that of other agents”.

While the promulgation of such legislation in the US is virtually unfathomable in the current climate, there are ample quality assurance lessons that can be drawn from these regulations, applicable by individual states and-or educational systems.

Similar best practice lessons can be drawn from Manitoba’s International Education Act, the Education (Pastoral Care of International Students) Code of Practice in New Zealand and copious best practice documentation and training resources developed by the British Council.

Closer to home, there is also considerable information about how to work ethically and productively with education agents, including the Commissioned Agents and NACAC’s (the National Association for College Admission Counseling) Code of Ethics Series, in particular the sections on legal requirements and accreditation standards, vetting and external training, contracts and institutional transparency.

The way forward

Change has to come from three major stakeholders: the US government in the form of EducationUSA, professional associations like NAFSA: Association of International Educators, NACAC and the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, to name a few, and educational institutions themselves, all of which can work together and present a united front in thought, word and deed regarding their concern about standards and quality.

This in turn will help professionalise agency-based recruitment, or at least that segment of it involved in the recruitment of US-bound international students.

Dr Mark A Ashwill is managing director of Capstone Vietnam, a full-service educational consulting company with offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Viet Nam. Capstone works exclusively with regionally accredited colleges and universities in the US. Ashwill blogs at An International Educator in Viet Nam. Eddie West is executive director of international programs at UC Berkeley Extension. Previously, he served as director of international initiatives at the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). West blogs at International Education Insights.