International Education Agents 101

International students are the lifeblood of educational institutions and economies, and will be well into the future. Market intelligence firm HolonIQ predicts there will be up to 9 million internationally mobile students enrolled in foreign institutions by 2030. The firm also forecasts USD$433 billion in international student spending by 2030, more than double what it was in 2019.

Education agents are a key element in the international student recruitment ecosystem. In fact, according to ICEF, approximately 22,000 agents operate worldwide, ranging from sole traders to multinationals, who serve students and clients across the globe. Their involvement in the international student recruitment process depends on many things including student home countries and study destinations. But one thing is certain, with the number of international students expected to increase substantially into the next decade, education agents are here to stay.

From the International Office to other departments such as admissions and finance, education agents work closely with institutions to aid student recruitment. This is why having a holistic approach to managing the relationship reaps benefits for students, education providers and agents alike.

Here is everything institutions need to know about education agents, their role in the international education space and how to foster and cultivate relationships to ensure a smooth enrollment process for students.

The role of an education agent is very similar to the role of a travel agent. Acting as an intermediary between a provider (the institution) and their customers (the students), education agents typically specialize in a particular region or recruit for a particular institution.

Agents primarily work for institutions to help find and place international students – ideally looking for the best fit for everyone involved. However, they also provide an advisory and support function for students and their families, sharing extensive knowledge and insight on available options and making recommendations on the most suitable destination countries, institutions and courses.

In addition, agents, and their interactions with universities, have a direct impact on the student application and enrollment process.

For many families, sending their child abroad to study is one of the biggest decisions they will ever make, and let’s not forget the almost incomprehensible level of choice that students have. So it makes sense they would seek professional advice and support from an education agent, advice on the countries, institutions and courses best suited to meet the student’s aspirations and aptitude, as well as their financial means, to distill their options down to a manageable level.

The core services and benefits agents offered to students include:

1. Matching students with institutions and courses

2. Helping students with the application process and entrance requirements

3. Assisting with document translation and verification

4. Helping with/preparing student visa applications

5. Providing up-to-date information on government and provider policies (e.g. those relating to visas, teaching delivery and more)

The level of involvement agents have in the application process tends to vary according to both student home and destination country locations. For example, students wishing to study at Australian institutions often work with an education agent to navigate the student visa process, which can often be convoluted. Students wishing to study in the U.K. or U.S. may decide to work with an agent in a more advisory capacity to help support their school choice and application process.

An agent’s work does not stop after students get placed. According to the 2023 ICEF Agent Voice report, 74% of agents say they help their students make tuition fee payments. 28% use a third-party platform to do this with the largest majority using Flywire.”

Payment services or recommendations on how to pay are particularly valuable to families because, with the significant financial investment involved in sending their child abroad, they want to be sure their payments are secure, and they are getting the best value for their money. This aligns with research Flywire recently commissioned to explore attitudes of more than 1,800 students worldwide. Flywire’s report, “Unlocking the door to higher education”, unveils that one in four students across the globe find making payments to be a significant stressor to them or their families because of unclear processes from their institutions. Furthermore, 62% of students who had used an education agent as part of their education selection process, said their agent gave them payment process advice or processed payments on their behalf.

This research also shows that agents support students with a huge range of ancillary services, such as accommodation booking, insurance, travel and post-arrival support. In fact, the ICEF 2023 Agent Voice research further complements this by noting that 64% of agents surveyed have increased the range of products and services they offer to students to provide them with a greater level of support.

Agents come in all shapes and sizes. In the Good Practice Guide for Providers Using Education Agents, BUILA identifies six agent types with size often determining the scope of their role, both for institutions and for students.

The sole trader agent

These agents are usually family-run businesses and have deep roots within the community. They offer a highly personalized service and can usually only offer institutions a small number of student enrollments.

The SME agent

SME agents often have more than one office all within the same country. Typically recruiting up to 200 students per year for between 10 and 80 institutions, SME agents may act as sub-agents for other larger agencies.

The market specialist agent

Market specialist agents typically operate from multiple offices in the same country or region, recruiting approximately 1,000 students per year for more than 80 institutions. They tend to have good staffing levels and systems in place to streamline operations and best serve clients.

The multi-national agent

As the name suggests, multi-national agents operate in multiple countries and act for 100 or more institutions. They usually, though not always, have robust systems and significant staffing levels, and will send large quantities of students to institutions across the globe.

The specialist/online agent

While often a sole trader or SME, this type of agent is distinct from the other agent types because they tend to specialize in a particular discipline, act for or are embedded in a single institution, or use well developed digital tools and systems to operate purely online.

Nearly all (97% according to BUILA & UUKi) education agents are paid a fee, or commission, by institutions, usually upon placement and based on a percentage of a student’s first year tuition fees. Other established, but less common, payment models are retainers, a set fee for services provided regardless of the number of students placed, or a per-head rate for each student that enrolls.

Unfortunately, commission payments are often a source of frustration between institutions and their agents. This is due to a lack of clarity around how many/which students a particular agent should be paid for, and at what point in the application/enrollment process. For example, an agent may invoice for commission before a student has confirmed their enrollment; the agent’s commission invoice may relate to a number of (perhaps unidentified) students, or internal records may not correlate to the invoice figures. To prevent dissatisfaction from building up on either side, it is important that a mutually agreeable commission payment policy is developed and agreed by Finance and International Office teams . This policy should address agreement terms, invoicing processes and payment timescales.

Technology - or rather a lack of technology - exacerbates existing friction in the commission payment process, for both institutions and agents. In 2022, ICEF reported that 68% of agents did not have a CRM or software to support commission payments, and 63% used Excel or other manual processes to invoice for commission payments.

Without a robust way to record, submit and validate commission payments there is room for errors (e.g. duplicated or missing payments) to occur, ample opportunity for unscrupulous “bad actors” to attempt fraud, and payment delays, all of which affect the bottom line of agents and institutions.

While the agent relationship usually sits with the International Office, payments resulting from agent-derived applications and enrollments are processed by finance teams, and finance processes can impact agents.

Apart from the application process, payment is one of the first points of contact between students, their families and educational providers, so a smooth process is key to satisfaction. If the payment process is unclear and difficult to navigate with queries going unanswered, it can significantly impact the student’s perception of the institution.

The 2023 ICEF Agent Voice research, showed that three in four agents said that the support they most value from institutions is providing quick responses to queries or issues during the enrollment process.

When finance teams are kept on the periphery of the agent relationship, and only have limited interaction outside of payment inquiries or processing commission payments, inefficiencies and a buildup of frustrations affecting internal and external relationships can result. The student, or payer, ultimately pays the price.

To help international students have good study experiences, a smooth payment process is essential. This is why it is important that finance teams and agents communicate and work together effectively. Here are a few best practices to cultivate and foster solid working relationships:

Build relationships across internal departments:

As the relationship with education agents tends to sit with the international team, finance teams should connect internally to foster cross-departmental relationships and mutual understanding. This will not only help finance better understand the objectives of the international team, their recruitment strategies and agent partner mix, but will also help the international office address common issues arising from agent-initiated student recruitment, institution selection and the payment process.

Understand student demographics:

It is also useful for the finance team to understand the mix of nationalities within the institution’s international student population, get a grasp of the financial frameworks in each country, and work to minimize the complexities of making tuition payments. This way, finance teams can better anticipate issues that might occur and provide proactive solutions to help ease the payment process - and potential financial hardship - for students from those territories. Being able to anticipate financial issues and offer more flexible payment options will help improve enrollment and retention, reduce missed payments, and increase cash flow.

Meet with education agents:

Taking the time to meet with agents when they visit campus (or to participate in a visit overseas to their office location) provides an opportune moment for all relevant departments and agents to discuss the relationship, opportunities and challenges, and the “on-the-ground” impact of policies and processes that are in place. Fostering cross-departmental communication, and refining processes to work for everyone can help build a stronger, more effective partnership which delivers a superior student experience.

Provide agents with dedicated points of contact:

Education agents also benefit from having dedicated contacts from finance, admissions and other relevant teams to approach for answers to student queries, the swift resolution of which will help students more easily navigate their international education journey.

Automate more processes:

The international education ecosystem is often complex, especially as institutions look to diversify and add more regions to their recruitment efforts. In addition, finance teams seek seamless payment processes that support multiple locations to better meet the growing needs and expectations of students worldwide, while also reducing complexities to increase staff efficiencies.

ICEF reported that only 19% of agents receive commissions from partner institutions through a third party SaaS solution or an aggregator/digital recruitment platform to receive commissions. 40% said they used an in-house solution and prior research indicates that these agents are likely relying on manual processing with no software to support commission management. Delays and errors in commission payments, which can be a result of inaccurate data about a student’s enrolment progress, are a key frustration for both parties and could easily be solved by employing a robust solution to monitor the progress of agent-initiated student applications, enrolments and payments.

Most agents are working with multiple institutions, each with their own application, enrollment and payment processes. These processes need to be navigated and communicated to students who may not have any experience with how things operate in their destination country. So, the simpler a university can make a process, the better - for everyone involved.

74% of agents say they are helping students with tuition fee payments, so the opportunity to leverage technology to make it easier for agents to do this—and improve the student experience—is huge.

Offering all your agents a way to support students with the payment process that makes it simple, clear and consistent will reap rewards in multiple areas of the institution. For instance, finance teams will value the efficiencies driven by the ability to automatically reconcile agent-initiated payments using student information, and admissions teams may value the ability to proactively communicate with students more easily .

As the Trusted Choice for millions of students and thousands of education institutions, agents and partners worldwide, Flywire has built a powerful global payment network to flexibly meet the diverse needs of the industry. Our Agent Platform makes it easy for institutions to better manage agent relationships, while also streamlining the payment tracking and reconciliation process for transactions processed through our network. In addition, our solution helps to eliminate short-balance payments, wire fees, and risk by:

1. Centralizing all relevant agent and student data

2. Securely processing and delivering payments in full

3. Reducing unidentified transactions

4. Automating reconciliation to save time

5. Tracking payments in real time with transparency

With a significant proportion of agents operating without adequate technology, institutions and agents alike need to team with proven third-party providers like Flywire to enhance the student experience by simplifying processes, increasing efficiency and improving overall data and payment accuracy.