How is international recruitment success measured?

An analysis of the KPIs of six published international strategies with an end date between 2024 and 2030 shows that five include KPIs relating to international student recruitment. Between them, they list nine such KPIs.

Five of the KPIs relate to student numbers. Examples include:

• new student enrolments on campus (with a target of increasing these by 25% over five years)
• number of international students studying at University X (with a target to increase population by 85% over eight years)
• number and percentage of international students (no target)
• proportion of international student population that is international (target of 30%, which appears to represent maintenance of the status quo).

Two KPIs are financial. One looks to achieve a tripling (from a very low base) of international revenue over five years. Another specifies the income it seeks to achieve from international fees.

The final two KPIs (both linked to a small institution at a very early stage of internationalisation) are:

• to expand the number of ‘new international markets’ (presumably this means countries it secures enrolments from for the first time)
• to achieve visa refusals of less than 10% (in other words, comply with UKVI minimum requirements, which can be more challenging for institutions with low numbers of international students).

What about the wider context?

As was the case for the TNE-related KPIs, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about this set of KPIs for international recruitment. In all but one case, there’s an assumption that year-on-year growth would be possible and desirable.  

This international growth assumption was made by the vast majority of UK universities during the immediate post-pandemic boom. An explicit consideration of this can be found in one post-92 university’s 2022-2029 strategic plan, whose text reads:

A growing global middle class of more than 1 billion people will mean more students going into HE – with applications to UK HEIs likely to continue to outstrip acceptances. The number of international students studying in the UK is expected to grow by 5-6% per year to 2030

Such assumptions now (at the time of writing in early 2025) appear to be misguided. It’s clear that some institutions used stretching international recruitment targets in their forward planning as a way to make ambitious financial forecasts balance.

These things go in cycles. When the original post-study work visa was abolished in 2012, this led to more modest targets (e.g. holding international enrolments steady) within institutional strategies. It will be interesting to see if the targets set out in strategies developed since 2024 are less bullish than those that went before.

Any income targets linked to international student fees need to be very carefully thought through. A gross income target doesn’t take into account discounts (scholarships, bursaries, fee remissions) or cost of acquisition (agent commission, marketing and recruitment costs). These costs are greater for some countries than others, as is the provision that needs to be made for bad debt, so a shift in the profile of the international cohort (even if enrolment numbers stay the same) can have a significant impact on income levels.

Where is there room for innovation?

It’s surprising not to see more in the way of diversification KPIs, which seemed to feature more prominently in the batch of international strategies I reviewed in 2020 (though the low numbers available to analyse make any comparison tenuous).

For some years, diversification of source countries and recruitment channels have been hot topics across the UK sector. A major driver of this is risk reduction (reducing reliance on a small number of source markets). Enrichment of the student experience through having diverse cohorts is often seen as a positive by-product.

This is reflected in KPIs such as:

• ‘Be in the bottom quartile of the Russell Group in terms of reliance on top five recruitment markets by YYYY’

Related KPIs may include increasing the number of source countries generating more than (a specific number of) new student enrolments. Or reducing the proportion of students from a particular country on programmes where more than X% hails from a specific market. Of course, there has to be alignment between such ambitions and student number planning.

I’ve also seen KPIs linked to reduction of reliance on agents and/or increasing the proportion of enrolments from articulation, progression or pathway partners. Some institutions may have specific targets for incoming Study Abroad or Summer School students.

However, all of these KPIs are still largely focused on benefits to the institution. How about measuring success in widening participation at an international level?

The Education Insight Global Engagement Index suggests benchmarking performance by tracking the proportion of students from ODA countries (those eligible for Official Development Assistance); or the proportion of fee waivers for PhD students from ODA countries. One difficulty with external benchmarking is the time lag for publication of the official HESA data, so internal comparisons with the institution’s own performance in previous years may be more helpful for monitoring progress.  

I’ve seen KPIs such as ‘X% increase in postgraduates from low and lower-middle income countries’. Such ambitions are generally supported by generous scholarship programmes, some of which (in an effort not to exacerbate brain drain) are awarded on the basis of an applicant’s commitment and potential to make a positive contribution in their home country on graduation.

I would expect there to be a stronger focus on diversification KPIs in future strategies. I'd also expect growth KPIs to be more tightly targeted (by level of study, mode of study, or even region). It would be encouraging to see more KPIs relating to expanding participation from lower income countries and/or less socio-economically advantaged international students.

Could income-related KPIs include something along the lines of ‘reach a position where we are consistently reinvesting X% of international fee income into scholarships’ (or other initiatives to widen participation or enhance the experience of international students)?

I’ll be exploring KPIs to support ‘International student experience, success and alumni engagement’ in a future blog: there are certainly some metrics in those areas which directly support successful student recruitment.

In the meantime, further suggestions on alternative KPIs for ‘Attracting international students to the UK campus’ would be very welcome.

Next blog in this series

In my next blog, I’m going to share insights into KPIs associated with ‘international and intercultural experiences and exposure’, which appears in recent international strategies to be the third most popular measure of international success.

Links to earlier blogs in this series

Part 1 – What sits below the top of the iceberg?

Part 2 – Characteristics and key themes

Part 3 – Good KPIs, traps and tips

Part 4 – TNE students, programmes and partnerships

Tags/Keywords

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT RECRUITMENT INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY KPIS

Oldest First Newest First 0 Comments Add Comment