How do UK-based companies make money from international education?

Over the last month, I've had cause to stop and reflect on the international university applications 'market' in the UK. Friends and colleagues will know that the very idea of education as a business is one that makes me feel uneasy, but I think that's the legacy of an idealistic desire to become a teacher rather than any horror at the reality of the world. The truth is that we all need to earn a living, and it's perfectly possible to do so while helping students at the same time.

It's coming up for three years since I returned to the UK and stepped away from work in a school, and in that time I've learnt a lot about the business of education. When I was a teacher, I think I was naive, and when I look at the sector I work in now, I can see that the nuances of how different organisations in my professional space earn their living are ones not immediately clear to the Heads of Sixth Form, Heads of Careers and university advisors I work with in schools. So, as a piece of shorthand, I wanted to try to categorise what I see when I am out and about in the UK.

To start with, I would recommend anyone on the secondary-school side here trying to work out what exactly the commodity is for each organisation. In short, what's being sold? In some cases it is a particular university's education, in others it might be the expertise of a particular person or group of people, in others the commodity is either you, or your students. Now I should make it clear that I'm not being judgemental about the rights and wrongs of these different approaches but - and I guess I was naive - when I was a Head of Careers I never saw my students as the commodity.

The first model I see is the one I am in: independent university advising. In this, the expertise of the person doing the advising is the commodity. I am selling access to me and my team at The University Guys. We charge families for our time either by-the-hour or for a full package. The visits I do to schools (either on my own, or with the universities I chaperone on the tours which I run 'at cost' and not for profit) are designed to educate students and promote the idea of international university study and then promote me as a possible option to assist students in meeting that goal. So my income comes from charging families, and the commodity is me. There is a variation on this where the commodity of expertise is charged to the school: things like SAT / ACT prep courses, essay workshops, talks to students and INSET are billed to the school, not the student. For all of these, at the centre of the model is the fact that the people giving advice are experts in this field.

The second model is agency. Unlike a lot of friends in international advising, I don't have any issue with agents, when their work is done well. I can think of three agencies in the UK who I meet regularly and respect highly: they are knowledgeable about the universities they represent and work tirelessly to bring attention of them to students. An agent is someone who has a commission-based relationship with a university: they don't charge a family or a school, instead they take a cut of the tuition fees that students who go through the agent will eventually pay to the partner university. In this model, expertise and relationships are being sold, both of which I think can be stronger when an agent specialises in a niche area than they can be in my model: if you are only dealing with a few universities, or one sector, then you can know it much better than when you advise on the 'whole market'. In this model what the commodity is take a little longer to work out: I would say that it is partly the expertise and connection of the agent, and partly access to students so that the agent retains their link to 'their' universities. Agency, when done well, can be very powerful: the problem is that when done badly it means that students are not being advised on all their options but only those which are likely to lead to commission for the agent. Thankfully in the UK, we have good agents working in the international space. And, as with independent counseling, they need to know their universities well to be able to do this job, meaning that students again get excellent advice.

The third model involves marketing universities, and here the commodity is, to some extent, students and schools. In this model, someone is paid by partner universities to promote them: either in terms of a flat annual fee, or a fee based on leads generated back to universities. At the core of this is promoting international university study but, crucially, in this model you don't get paid if the leads or interest for a particular group of universities come through: if all the students you meet apply to universities you don't work with, then it's going to be a bad year. Again, the UK has good people working in this space, but this model is perhaps the one that is most unclear to UK schools. Though it might appear that the 'whole market' is being promoted, the fear is that commercial considerations could get in the way. Regardless, by being partnered with universities, the likelihood is that the advice given is going to be good and - if schools are aware that students may not get advice on every option out there - can be very helpful for students.

The final model is the recruitment tour model, one I increasingly find myself seen as (given that almost no-one in the UK knows what an independent college counsellor is). Universities pay a company to run recruitment events, either fairs at central locations, or on roadshows visiting schools to engage with students. Here the commodity is somewhat different: the paying customers aren't students, or schools, or even universities returning money paid by students: here universities are paying to have access to students, facilitated by the tour company. Now I am in this space (somewhat accidentally and surprisingly) and I do struggle with this issue, hence why I keep my tour costs low: I'm not entirely comfortable with access to schools and students as the thing being sold. However, getting universities out to students - sometimes a long way from London - is work that I applaud, and I'm delighted at this time of year when I see that groups of international universities were travelling around the UK on one of these roadshows. Students have the idea of international university study brought right in front of their noses, perhaps the most powerful way to inspire them. The strength of this model is that students get access, but I'd also caution schools to be aware of the expertise model here: if your expertise is to arrange coherent tours and look after busy university recruiters, it doesn't automatically follow that you are an expert on how to make strong applications to these universities or can advise on the nuances involved in life as a student in different countries.

With these models, I'd also add that there is a big difference between the context of being knowledgeable within the UK, and being knowledgeable on a global scale. The UK is still in its nascent stages of students studying full degrees outside of the UK, and it is therefore quite easy to present oneself as an expert when - when compared to those doing this work globally - one's knowledge may be quite limited. When I was Head of Careers at Taunton School, I thought I knew loads about international university applications, that was until my first International ACAC Conference (OACAC as it was then) when I realised that I'd only made the tiniest scratch on the surface of international education. Even now, a decade into this work and having helped students apply to universities in over 20 countries, with my list of visited universities into triple figures, I look at friends based in the US or Asia who've spent their entire careers doing this work and feel like I still have much to learn. I would caution schools to be aware that giving access to someone who just knows the names of some international universities is a very different level of expertise from that of knowing the deep nuances of how to apply to them, how successful students have been there, and (though organisations like International ACAC, IECA, HECA and the Council of International Schools) being connected to them through professional memberships.

So four different models, all good but all different. I'm pleased to work in such a positive sector in the UK, with many people making the best of their model to help students to meet their ambitions, with collaboration at the core of what we do.