Wanted: Global Minds

To varying degrees, post-secondary schools – both public and private – are searching the world for new students. Here’s how they’re doing it, and why

Dec 5, 2006  

by Phoebe Dey

Mohit Dang, for instance, knew nothing about Edmonton before he ventured here three years ago. But when the travelling tour hit his private high school in Dehradun, a small city in northern India, his father paid attention. “The Alberta Advantage was a huge factor for how I ended up here,” says Dang. “I was always interested in going abroad so for my dad, Alberta’s economy was a big factor. In India parents are a big part of decision-making.”

It also helped that Dang was offered a scholarship from U of A to cover the cost of his first year. Now in his third year, he estimates he is spending almost $30,000 for two semesters, when he factors in tuition and living expenses, a figure that is considerably more than it would cost him to be educated in India. But as much as he misses his Indian food, his experience on campus has been worth it. “Money is not the biggest factor, what is most important is that I am learning,” says Dang, who is studying business with the plan of returning to India after he earns his degree. “I believe and my dad believes there is no price for knowledge and I’ve learned more during my two years at the University of Alberta than I probably have my entire life.”

That attitude is common among foreign students and their families, says Williams. In fact, higher fees often reflect the quality of the education, he says. “It’s not an argument for higher fees but for global competition. Many of these families understand the marketplace,” says Williams. “Our fees are the middle of the pack and it is still cheaper to study here than at most U.S. universities.” It also helps when countries like Norway provide students $16,000 a year for travelling abroad, the same cost as tuition for an international student at the U of A.

So why do post-secondary institutions go through all the effort to bring students from afar? The simplest answer is that international students are needed to build a world-class university, says Williams. Adding diversity to a classroom is important for creating a more stimulating environment. And as the demand for more skilled workers grows, international students can fill a shortage.

“It’s definitely not a money maker for us,” says Williams. “If the main reason was dollars and cents, we wouldn’t be doing it because it takes a lot of effort to get the students here. All the fees go right back into the process: setting up a scholarship pool for more students, marketing, recruitment and the majority to teaching and learning.” The U of A aims to limit the additional administrative costs associated with international students – for marketing, recruitment, admissions, orientation, advising and so on – to 15% of the university’s tuition revenue from foreign students, says Williams, but accounting for the costs and benefits is an inexact science. Marketing efforts overseas, for example, are not just about attracting students, but also about attracting faculty, arranging official visits and exchange­s, and generally branding the institution in the global marketplace.

Still, as schools of higher learning attempt to build their teaching and research capacities over the long term in the face of sometimes inconsistent government funding, international students can help stabilize the revenue mix, says the CBIE’s Fox. Considering we have more spaces than Canadian people to fill them at the masters and PhD level, the viability of some graduate programs is dependent on the international market, he says.

“Human capital matters for us and it is something that needs to be addressed within our immigration department,” says Fox. “Study and immigration are definitely linked —
it is part of the global economy, so we need to increase the number of foreign students coming here to stay and meet that deficit,” Fox adds.

The University of Calgary is slowly increasing its number of international students but the province’s No. 2 institution doesn’t put “as many resources behind it as, say, the U of A or UBC,” says Nikki Croft, manager of the university’s Office of International Marketing and Recruitment. “We put more resources into making sure the students have good services once they get here than on recruitment.” Those services include rides from the airport and a variety of Canadian activities hosted by the university’s International Student Centre, such as day trips to Banff and the West Edmonton Mall, ice skating at the Olympic Oval and attending a hockey game.

But the effort the university does make is focused. U of C’s designated priority markets are the United States, China, India, Mexico and parts of the Middle East and it recruits in areas of study that match the institution’s academic strengths: health and wellness, energy and the environment, creating technologies and managing information for the knowledge society and understanding human behaviour, institutions and cultures. “Our strategy is academic-driven,” says Croft. “We are focused on getting the best of the best, particularly at a master’s or doctorate level. We know that if we want to get the best minds, we can’t look in a narrow pool.”

The Internet is the most important international marketing tool for the U of C, both domestically and internationally. The school also has marketing materials placed in educational offices around the world and attends the odd recruitment fair, says Croft. It also contracts organizations in key cities to market on its behalf. For example, when the Canadian embassy in Kazakhstan held a fair, the U of C hired somebody locally to represent their institution. The more than 225 linkage­s with international institutions, including exchange agreements with other schools, reflects the importance of internationalization, says Croft. “It is all about understanding different perspectives,” she says. “It has nothing to do with making money.”

Concordia University College of Alberta admits it is not devoting a lot of attention to recruitment. Historically, about 2% of the private religious college’s student population – 45 to 50 students – has been made up of international prospects, but administration would like to see that number grow, says Tony Norrad, dean of admissions, recruitment and financial aid for the Edmonton-based college.

Concordia does advertise on a number of websites belonging to organizations with an international student focus. It also distributes promotional CD-ROMs to Canadian embassies around the world, but the school hasn’t done much more than that, Norrad says. Still, many of its international students have been recruited by other institutions such as high schools and have found their way to Concordia’s campus because they’re looking for smaller classrooms and more personalized instruction, says Norrad.

The largest reason the college isn’t more engaged in international recruitment is simply because it hasn’t drafted a strategic plan on how to do it. “It’s about having the proper infrastructure to support those students as best we can once they arrive,” he says.

Like his Albertan counterparts, Norrad knows a good opportunity when he sees one. “As the local market for students becomes increasingly competitive, we have to look at those international markets that have been largely untapped.”

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