Higher Education marketing is all too frequently reduced to a vulgar exchange of hyperbole for money, but offers a range of pathways forward for institutions hobbled by international enrolment caps.
It is surprising how thin the conventional higher education management playbook often appears to be. To staff the ebbs and flows of enrolment revenue often appear to result in predictable responses.
- Play 1: Enrolment growth forecasted: spend on facilities and infrastructure.
- Play 2: Enrolment contraction forecasted: freeze staff hires, offer redundancies and avoid starting new construction.
Of course, this under-estimates the thinking behind responses and doesnt address long-term issues with a lack of capacity to understand where the market is going because of an underinvestment in research that could underpin more robust and effective forecasting. But here’s the thing. When an enrolment contraction is forecast, it almost never triggers a realisation that your institution may not have actually achieved peak organisational nirvana and there might be some better ways of doing things that get you out of the hole. It usually results in Play 2.
Clearly the imposition of international caps has the potential to impact a number of institutions negatively, in terms of enrolments. The far greater impact, on a global scale, is to the tens of thousands of students who had hoped to study on these shores who are now shut out by the Albanese Government (not to mention the tens of thousands more who would be shut out if Peter Dutton’s team came to power).
Rather than immediately rush to Play 2, it’s worth first looking at the wider marketing picture.
There are somewhere between four and seven ‘P’s’ of marketing, depending on who you talk to – levers of marketing activity. Price, Promotion, Place, People, Product and Process and Physical Evidence.
It’s okay, I am not going to bore you with all of them, but the Professional staff in your marketing team are pretty much confined to acting in the ‘promotion’ space.
Here’s a quick excursion into what could be if the Marketing department were allowed to roam beyond the realm of ads and making things look pretty.
Price – how much is paid
- We know Australian degrees are already some of the highest-priced in the international student market, but also there have been some steep discounts/bursaries call them what you will which mean many are selling below the sticker price. While there isn’t much potential to increase the price of degrees, a reduction in discounting will cut out chunks of your market, but could lead to a higher revenue per student for those that choose to come. This is a terrible outcome for diversity, meaning only wealthier families can afford to take a place at an Australian university, but the laws of economics suggest that when supply shrinks, prices rise. It’s ironic to ponder the unintended consequence of a Labour government policy could be that it could cut lower-income international students out of access to higher-status institutions if restricted access results in price rises.
- Another element of price – agent commissions. Look at options to reduce agent commissions and increase direct recruitment through offshore staff employed by your institution. This again has limitations (great agents play a valuable role that cant be immediately displaced by onshore staff), but every option is worth exploring at this point, particularly where you have recruitment areas with poor performing agents.
Place – where you deliver
- What if you turn more of your Bachelor degrees into 2+1 – studying two years offshore and the final year on campus in Australia. The student still gets an Australian experience on campus for a year, the total number of onshore enrolments decline because students are present for less time and students also save money on accommodation and travel for two years. Sweeten the deal with annual intensives taught in country twice per year (one to start the year and one mid second Semester) and you have a new delivery package for the same old product.
- Another delivery option – grow TNE. This policy encourages institutions to deliver offshore by default, increasing the focus of institutions away from Australian operations and into provision of education in offshore locations. In case of future government restrictions, set up the operation as an independent company at least part-owned by your institution and you will probably be able to future proof yourself against future caps.
- Grow courses fully online. Lots of institutions have. Gaining market profile and acceptance is the harder part of the equation.
Product – what is offered / how it’s delivered
- Here is an out of the box idea. Develop new innovative courses and teach them only offshore and then invite the Education Minister to visit annually. Sure, it’s not doing anything for Australian education, but if they aren’t going to increase your domestic funding and they are limiting your international enrolment earnings, why not?
- Grow the domestic postgrad market. It’s uncapped (for now) and was a bigger focus for institutions 10 years ago until they decided international recruitment was easier (and more glamorous, have you seen the business class seats on domestic flights?).
- Grow non-accredited training options. There is a whole world of businesses out there frustrated because they can’t get the right package of education for their staff. They don’t want to put staff through degrees, they want to focus in on skills that their staff can use the next day. A colleague and I have been working in this area and are developing up some new approaches. You wouldn’t believe the scale of the potential market.
- Another bold option – merge with a smaller regional uni in a marginal seat that is going to get a generous allocation of international student places. Take them over, get hold of their cap allocation, and fill it with students from your better-branded (merged) institution.
And Finally
The final option doesn’t start with P unfortunately, so it’s clearly not a marketing strategy. It starts with a W.
- If all the above tire you out too much and require too much organisational agility, there is another option – Wait. Wait a year, the Federal Election will be over, ATEC may or may not be in place to restore sanity to the system and maybe the posturing of both major parties will have eased by then.
We will be talking about new approaches to the wider world of marketing, strategy and AI at HEFEST in Adelaide next week. A small number of tickets are still available, with sales ending Friday.
