The State University of New York is one of America’s largest public university systems catering to 465,000 students. We catch up with Krista Northup, Director of International Recruitment and Agency Operations, to discuss marketing, agents and campus diversity.
The PIE: Who makes up the SUNY network and how many international students do you have?
KN: The State University of New York (SUNY) is a system of 64 campuses of different types and sizes, large and small. They include university centres which are research focused, community colleges, technology colleges and four-year comprehensive universities. We have about 23,000 international students.
The PIE: How do you recruit SUNY’s international students?
KN: Traditionally each campus has been responsible for their own recruiting and that’s still true to a certain extent. But a couple of years ago, under the leadership of Dr Mitch Leventhal, we put in place a system-wide approach and established the Office of International Recruitment.
“When agents are viewed as partners, we believe they can add a lot of value to a recruitment strategy”
We’re trying to get out there and raise the brand of SUNY in hopes that students will choose one of our campuses when they apply to schools in the US. We complement the existing strategies of our member schools; we don’t want to duplicate what they are doing nor do we think we have a better approach. It’s more about raising the SUNY brand, especially for those campuses that don’t have as much brand recognition in the market.
The PIE: Is it working out well?
KN: It’s going very well. One of the things we are doing, and this is being organised centrally, is working with agents. So that’s a big part of the strategy. Not all our members have traditionally worked with agents. But we have now structured things so that all the agent contracts come through the central office, and this allows more of our campuses (the ones who want to) to make use of agents.
The PIE: The National Association for College Admission Counselling (NACAC) is currently ruling on whether its members, which include most US universities, can use agents. Why do you advocate using them?
KN: When agents are viewed as partners, we believe they can add a lot of value to a recruitment strategy. We have decided, in order to protect ourselves and ensure high standards, to take a slightly different approach when selecting our agents. We only work with American International Recruitment Council (AIRC)-certified agents. AIRC is run by American universities and certifies recruiting agents to ensure they behave appropriately when conducting their business.
A lot of agents do follow these standards anyway, but certification is an easy way of weeding out the good from the bad operators.
“They also give us insights into the nuances and conditions of a market”
The PIE: What do you see as the benefits?
KN: Agents extend our ability to connect in markets so they become an extension of our marketing efforts. They also give us insights into the nuances and conditions of a market. For instance, we recently attended our first fair in Israel; it was my first time to the market and I don’t know a lot about the education system. Having an agent on the ground means there is somebody to assist in planning and promotion.
In addition, they can help identify popular majors and assist representatives in understanding the education system so that we can be better prepared when talking to students. Working together is fundamental to success. The agents are trained by us, they know what qualifications we need, they help students, and we both uphold our standards.
The PIE: Why is there such an objection in the US do you think?[More>>]
KN: It’s this idea of outsourcing I suppose. Education is held on a high pedestal in the US, but I don’t think using agents diminishes that. We’re not talking about ever lowering the quality of the education system or the students that we’re accepting. We uphold every admissions standard whether or not a student comes through an agent. Agents are one strategy to reach international students effectively.
At the end of the day the university’s admissions office makes the final decision, and if that’s never compromised then there’s no problem in using agents.
The PIE: Other than agents, what channels do you use to reach the market?
KN: Direct marketing, e-marketing campaigns, virtual fairs. We spend a lot of time working on our website and are trying to do more specialised outreach and marketing based on the country. This is actually another way in which we work with agents as they can help us with country-specific input when we are designing our marketing materials.
“We have been focused on China, Korea and India but we’re starting to expand”
The PIE: What are SUNY’s biggest markets?
KN: SUNY campuses recruit across a wide spectrum, but most of our efforts from the system perspective have been focused on China, Korea and India. We’ve also made a strategic decision to focus on Vietnam. We’re starting to explore and expand into other markets too. We’ve been looking at Denmark and Israel this year. Diversity is important to us; we don’t want to keep focusing only on the big markets and want to make sure we have a nice diversity of students on our campuses.
The PIE: Campus diversity is an issue many universities ponder over. Why is it important?
KN: One of the key reasons US universities recruit overseas is to have different perspectives in the classroom. We always talk about and profile the American learning style which encourages open discussion and debate, asking questions, and learning from each other in addition to learning from the teacher.
We believe the more diversity in a classroom, the more potential for this type of collaborative learning. Also, diversification is essential to enrolment management. If something happens in a particular student market and students stop coming, you’re in real trouble if you have an over reliance on that market.
The PIE: At the moment do you see a lot of demand for SUNY in the market?
KN: I do think there’s a lot of demand. It’s interesting the reaction you get in some markets to a public university system. SUNY offers top quality programs at an affordable price. If you compare us to some of the private universities in New York, and around the country, we come in at quite an affordable rate. But the perception of public education varies country to country. In Israel, for example, it’s very favourable because people are very cost aware and trying to save money. In other markets there’s a perception that lower cost means lower quality.
“The perception of US public education varies country to country”
That said, I do see a lot of demand and our goal is to brand SUNY better: we are a big state university with a lot of capacity and a lot of great programmes.
The PIE: How do you help your smaller members overcome the perceptions you mention?
KN: We work hard to explain the benefits smaller classrooms and colleges can offer. I went to a small school in Maryland and was exposed to opportunities I would never have had at a larger university, because I would just have been a number there. I met professors, they wrote recommendation letters for me, they were available for questions if I was stuck on a topic. And that’s the type of thing we’re talking about with prospective students: rank is one factor to consider, but the experiences you get on a campus are just as important.
