Should recruiting agents be regulated? And by whom?

To operate in this global market, institutions – and especially the lesser-known ones – now frequently turn to agents and recruiters in order to attract prospective students. Many point to the risks of using these third party agents and plead for more regulation or even abolishment.
 

Abolish or regulate?

In Inside Higher Ed, Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education, sheds light on this issue. His viewpoint is clear and unambiguous: “Agents and recruiters are impairing academic standards and integrity – and it’s time for colleges and universities to stop using them.”

These agents recruit prospective students and provide general information, but – according to Altbach – in reality they are also making offers to students or actually admitting them, often based on murky qualifications (even though the colleges that hire them say they themselves still control admissions).

Several initiatives have been introduced in the United States with the objective of regulating this “new profession” but the organizations behind them lack powers to monitor compliance or discipline violators. The solution Altbach provides is simple: abolish them! After all, these agents have no legitimate role in higher education.
 

Dutch self-regulation

In the Netherlands, institutions have chosen self-regulation as the prime instrument for managing international recruitment – and its excesses. The sector-wide “code of conduct” sets out standards for Dutch higher education institutions in their dealings with international students. One chapter in this code of conduct deals with the use of agents. The provisions of this chapter stipulate that agents have to act in the spirit of the code and they clarify the respective responsibilities of agents and of higher education institutions. One of the basic premises is that admission remains the responsibility of the institutions and that institutions have to take action immediately in cases of unethical behaviour.

This way of dealing with the risks entailed in student recruitment (in an increasingly commercialized market) is somewhat comparable to the method of self-accreditation or “accreditation lite” in the United States. Altbach criticizes this method for its powerlessness in cases of non-compliance.
 

Other solutions?

Some of the comments contributed below the Inside Higher Ed article call Altbach’s view elitist. Prestigious American schools like Boston College might not need such recruiting agencies, but what about less prestigious universities? What about those that are not part of the Ivy League, the Russell Group or the Group of 8? Maybe these particular institutions do need professional assistance in reaching prospective international students.

For those institutions, abolishment might not be acceptable. Moreover, the question remains as to whether all of these agents are really rogue operators. Is Altbach’s opinion also valid for agents in other parts of the world? Or is this phenomenon only seen in the more commercial higher education sectors (Altbach is mainly referring to the USA, Australia and the UK)?

Either way, even if the number of malicious operators were small, some form of regulation may be necessary to protect the numerous international students about to invest a lot of money in their futures. Should we let the market do its work, or does this sector need government protection? Or do we trust higher education institutions (and the majority of the agents) enough to accept soft instruments like codes of conduct and other forms of self-regulation?