How effective are OPMs in scaling online international student numbers?
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It feels like hardly a day goes by without coming across some jarring commentary on the state of UK higher education. The current situation has drawn wider attention to the sector, bringing a range of views with varying levels of validity. The perspectives from within the sector can also be jarring, often veering into the same old blame game, with different stakeholders directing their frustration in the usual, predictable directions whenever things don’t go their way.
Then there’s the analysis of the fundamental causes of the sector’s problems and potential solutions, most of which focus on singular factors and one-dimensional fixes. Government funding and greater collaboration continue to dominate those respective word clouds.
The UK HE sector is in a bad shape, but if we want to really understand in a serious and sophisticated way what has led to this situation and how to redress it in the future, we need to move beyond subjective, self-interested takes, turf wars, and blinkered ideology. While it is legitimate to point to external factors that have contributed to the sector’s difficulties, there is also a need for introspection.
This all brings to mind the words of Ralf Rangnick during a particularly low point as Manchester United’s manager. He said it was not enough to make minor cosmetic changes, the club needed open-heart surgery. It feels as though HE has reached a similar moment. Although, at times, one wonders whether it is therapy rather than surgery that the sector needs, to first seriously and objectively confront the range of factors in its past that have led to its current state.
There is a certain degree of self-deception, denial, misconceptions and misplaced hope wrapped up in the current noise around the sector, and online learning is a small part of this. While it would be an exaggeration to suggest that moves into online learning are seen as a saviour for UK universities, there is a degree of hope being placed on the return on investment from such moves. When this hope is combined with another major focus, expanding transnational education, it creates a potent mix that can lead to viewing potential diversification opportunities through the equivalent of beer goggles.
This combined message, that positions moves into online learning as part of a strategy to recruit students globally, is frequently highlighted in press releases following new university and online programme management (OPM) partnerships. The recent announcement of a partnership between Lancaster University and the US OPM company 2U is a prime example, with words like “global” and “world” sprinkled liberally throughout the release.
While it is certainly the case that many UK universities lack the capability and experience to enter and successfully operate in online student markets, it is also worth questioning the ability of all OPM companies to achieve significant online international student recruitment goals. As such, it is worth exploring the data and track records of OPMs in genuinely scaling up online international student recruitment.
Have OPM partnerships achieved scale in international student recruitment?
If we examine the most recent HESA data for the 2022-23 academic year, it tells an interesting story. As OPM partnerships are often exclusively focused on postgraduate taught master's degrees, this is the obvious area to analyse when assessing the recruitment of international online students to universities with OPM partnerships.
The data shows that of the 30 UK universities with the highest number of online international postgraduate taught students, 33% have or had an OPM partnership. However, it is important to note that not all of the students included in these figures will have been recruited for OPM programmes, so this does not tell the whole story.
People may have different definitions of what constitutes significant scaling of online international student numbers, but it is difficult to identify any universities with OPM partnerships that have substantially scaled their online international PGT student numbers. In 2022-23, only five UK universities reported online PGT student numbers exceeding 3,000, and just one of these had an OPM partnership in place.
It would not be difficult to argue that the University of London, with over 35,000 students (undergraduate and postgraduate) studying via distance learning, is the only UK university to have achieved significant scale in international online student numbers.
There are examples of UK universities that have previously scaled online international postgraduate student numbers to between 5,000 and 10,000, but these numbers have not been sustained for various reasons. In all those cases, private partnerships played a role, though not all could be classified as traditional OPM relationships.
How focused are OPMs on expanding universities’ global reach?
When you look more broadly across the international online undergraduate and postgraduate landscape and focus on UK universities with the highest student numbers, partnerships play a key role. This should not come as a surprise, as universities seeking external partners to recruit international students is a fundamental part of the sector, to which the expenditure on international agents documented in recent university accounts will attest.
However, the main and more well-known OPM companies are not front and centre when examining UK universities with the highest numbers of online international students. A range of factors has contributed to recruitment, some involving partnerships with companies that are similar to OPMs. These online education companies or providers focus exclusively on international student markets. A small ecosystem of such companies has emerged, though they are not typically included in discussions about the OPM sector, despite specialising in online international student recruitment. Other types of partnerships also contribute to online international student recruitment without involving OPMs, including, but not limited to, partnerships with overseas providers.
There is a risk that what I’m saying could be interpreted as a blanket critique of OPMs’ ability to recruit online international students. However, the issue is not their ability per se, but rather the extent to which it has historically been a priority for them, as well as their track record in achieving success at scale. There are UK universities with OPM partnerships that have recruited international students, and some partnerships appear to have good ratios between UK and international online students. However, with only 27 UK HEIs registering over 1,000 online international PGT students in 2022-23, it is difficult to argue that OPM partnerships have led to significant scaling of online international student recruitment.
Some OPM partnerships have delivered minimal international online student recruitment and have focused primarily on the domestic market. OPM companies that have traditionally operated in the US may have a weaker track record in this area. The US has a much larger domestic student market, and I am reliably informed that international online students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels account for well below 5% of total enrolments in these segments. In contrast, the split in the UK is significantly higher, with international students consistently making up 20-25% of the total number of online undergraduates at UK universities, and international postgraduate online students comprising between 45-50% of the total.
To give an example, one of the largest and most prominent universities in the US for online education, Arizona State University, has over 70,000 online students, according to recent analysis by Phil Hill. However, ASU has stated that it currently has fewer than 1,000 online international students, although, to be fair to ASU, it is involved in international education-focused initiatives.
Nonetheless, it is reasonable to question whether companies that have traditionally operated almost exclusively in domestic markets have the track record to support international online student recruitment efforts. Ultimately, regardless of a company’s history or where it is headquartered, one should not automatically assume that all OPMs have a strong pedigree in recruiting online students internationally.
Final thoughts on partnerships for global online growth
The turmoil in UK higher education has led to greater and more urgent ambitions to export universities' educational offerings globally. In the traditional TNE space, if India is the football, UK universities are currently playing the role of small children chasing it around the pitch.
In the online learning space, some moves are framed as a different form of export, but for some institutions, the global market, rather than the domestic one, is clearly the primary focus. Reaching international students has always required universities to develop a heavy reliance on partnerships, and OPM partnerships are one part of that mix. However, the extent to which these companies have a track record of scaling international online student recruitment is an important consideration.
Not all companies, and not all partnerships, demonstrate a strong, prioritised focus on international online student recruitment, and the student numbers reflect this. While partnerships will continue to play a key role in efforts to recruit international students, as always, those partnerships need to be chosen wisely.
