The National Association of College Admission Counseling (NACAC) in the USA made headlines earlier this year for considering a ban on members that paid commissions internationally to education agents.
Now, Nacac has appointed a commission that will spend two years considering an official position. President, Jim Miller, talks to The PIE about this topic, revealing a clash of welfare and commercial interests and that the issue is per-head recruting, rather than using agencies per se.
The PIE: NACAC has been in the press a lot recently. Other countries like the UK and Australia have historically been very open about using recruitment agencies over the last 10 years at least. Do you feel that the US is out on a limb at the moment in terms of not being so receptive to recruitment agencies?
JM: Let me give you a bit of background. Our overseas affiliate has 1,000 members so we’re not just national anymore. We were started 74 yrs ago because a group of admission representatives from some American colleges felt that the profession of guiding students as they make choices had to have standards. That has been the core and foundation of the association and now we’ve grown to where we have more than 11,000 members from many different countries and a high level of market penetration within the US.
For at least the past 40 yrs, we’ve had the Statement of Principals of Good Practice that articulate what we have come to as a group believe are the practices we should follow in the work we do – some of them are mandatory, some are recommended. For at least those 40 years, there’s always been a statement in there that says you should not pay or receive compensation for recruitment services on a per-head basis.
A year ago, our overseas affiliate asked us to interpret whether that statement included anywhere globally or if it was only related to recruitment within the US. We spent this year in conversations as well as having a comment period with folks from high school and colleges and universities, both domestic and international, taking input about this issue. The only thing we’re looking at is compensation on a per-student student basis, not using agents.
After considering the comments, the admissions practices’ committee decided at this point we believe that the statement is universal and applies to wherever we do our work. However, we agreed that – since we recognise that a significant number, not most, of schools are using this [recruitment] mode – for the next two years we will not have any enforcement of the ban, but a commission including members and non-members will look at that issue as well as other dimensions of international recruitment to see how we can offer more guidance to our members about appropriate practices. And help them to find cost efficient and efficient ways to recruit students that are sensitive to the protection of the student’s interests.
Miller at the recent NACAC conference
Back to your question – this is obviously something that is not taking the same approach that the European and Commonwealth countries have taken and we’re ok with that because there are lots of things we do differently in the US to the UK or other nations. That said, we recognise that we don’t control the world and we want to be sensitive to cultural differences, sensitive to institutional needs but at the same time we’ve essentially re-affirmed that our primary concern and sensitivity is to what’s in the best interests of students.
The PIE: I imagine at this juncture that you’re not imagining you’ll turn around and say that that a per-head recruiting model is OK, in which case which other model would you imagine recommending your members might use in order to work with agencies?
JM: I know that some organisations have contracts with agents on a consulting or flat fee basis. One of the things we don’t like about a per-head basis is the idea a student could come into an agent and be directed to one university over another on the basis that that university is paying more commission than another, regardless of whether it’s not the best fit for that student. So we don’t have the answers yet – we’re seeking them. We know there are numerous colleges who are having success internationally without paying agents or engaging agents at all in a formal way. Some other are using agents through either no pay or different pay modes than on a per head basis. We need to learn more about that so we can give information back to our members.
The PIE:. If you accept that working with agents is inevitable – and I think it is – even if you offered them a flat-fee agreement rather than working on a per-head basis, don’t you just end up with the same problem? No agent would want to or could feasibly represent 1,000 institutions. Students want agents to do the initial selection for them and present them with, for example, 10 institutions to choose from. So don’t you simply get the same problem in that agents being paid on a flat-fee arrangement would simply recommend the institution that’s paying the highest flat-fee?
JM: That’s a conundrum and we don’t yet have the answer to that. We recognise that some things can’t be legislated and we’ve seen ample examples of that within the US congress. The fundamental parameters of our policies has been more of a commonly accepted professional standard. This is more complex than that.
“That’s a conundrum and we don’t yet have the answer to that”
The PIE: I think it’s the overlapping of education and commercial which is the conundrum itself.
JM: Absolutely. During the comment period, we receive nearly 300 comments from colleagues around the world. Ninety per cent of those who said we should continue to ban it internationally – as we always have domestically – cited concern for students. For those who said we should not ban it, 90% of them said ‘this is important to my institution and we have to have tuition revenue’ and so they talked about it from a business model that they need this for the purpose of efficacy and revenue generation and getting students in their seats. So it’s definitely a bi-modal view.
There are numerous American universities at which the international recruitment is in a totally different office from [domestic admissions]. People who really don’t have the foundation of professional admission counselling and admission processes. They get there by virtue of being international folks with significant international experience and exposure. So they’re knowlegable about travel and visas and all the kinds of things that go around international education, but often they’re not experienced and knowledgeable in the culture of admissions as it operates in the US.
We need to learn from our members and from others – and we need to share stories – and we are hopeful that by the end of this two years we have something that works. But we have no idea what that will be.
The PIE: How will the commission be coming up with its decisions on best practice?
JM: There will be people involved in the conversations who use agents or who are very familiar with using agents for recruitment purposes. This isn’t just a closed conversation so we get the exact outcome we know we want. We are truly looking to reach out. In the conversations we want the commission to have, we want them to focus on what’s best for students – recognising the need for institutions to meet their goals but being sensitive that all of our institutions, at least in their missions statements, say they want what’s best for students.
The PIE: Do you have an idea of the percentage of your membership using agencies in any sort of form?
JM: That’s difficult as some will speak freely and some won’t. We can identity 100 or so who have said ‘we use agents and this is what we’ve done’. Our guess is that of the 3,000 or so colleges and universities in the nation there’s probably 10% that are using agents – so 200-300 schools. Our best-known universities are not doing it.
The PIE: Did you say that the submissions you received when you asked for comments on this were 50/50 in favour of/against the ban?
JM: I don’t remember the exact split but it was fairly even. But many of those who were saying we shouldn’t ban it, were still saying it’s not a good thing and we should put it in the recommended best practices section of the manual as not to do it instead of having it in the banned activity section.
The PIE: I feel that the Nacac’s decision is taken very seriously in the US and has generated lots of interest internationally. The fact you’ve held off from making a firm decision has been seen as positive. Do you think the US will still remain one of most popular markets globally if you don’t adopt the per-head recruitment practice that other countries are using?
Our guess is that of the 3000 or so colleges and universities in the nation there’s probably 10% who are using agents – so 200-300 schools
JM: The US is still immensely popular as you know. We’re still the favourite destination and continue to grow in the number of international students coming here, even though with the rise of recruitment by other countries like the UK and the Commonwealth countries, our market share has diminished. But I think the US will remain for a very long time as a highly desirable place for students to go to college. The world is changing quickly so to look forward 10 years if difficult to do. But because Nacac’s membership includes the vast majority of higher education institutions in the States and because we also include a few thousand secondary schools in US and a number of them abroad, when we make a decision it’s representative of what most universities are doing. So it is widely accepted and what influence it might have on practices around the globe, I don’t know.
The PIE: Do you have close liaison with government?
JM: We regularly talk with the folks at Education USA, which is the education arm of the US State Department. We have regularly served as panellists and resources at the conferences they have for members. So yes, we are engaged in close conversation with the government. That said, the US government doesn’t have the same level of integrated international enrolment policy at the governmental level as I think you have in the UK.
The PIE: Have you been surprised by the level of interest this topic has generated among your members and internationally?
JM: I knew it was going to get a lot of interest, but I didn’t know when I got elected as NACAC president two years ago that this would be such a big portion of what’s on my plate. The very positive thing is that we’ve stimulated a conversation that has brought in lots of voices that weren’t talking to each other before. So we have people from Education USA, and College Board, the higher education community domestically and internationally, secondary people. NAFSA, ACRO – lots of folks are contributing to this conversation. I don’t know yet how it’s going to come out but I have an optimistic feeling that the outcome is going to serve the profession and students well in the end.
