SUNY Announces New Strategy to Recruit International Students

SUNY Aims to Increase International Enrollment by 14,000 Students Over Next Five Years

Request For Proposals from Recruitment Agents Issued June 1

New York City – The State University of New York today announced a bold new global recruitment initiative intended to bring direct benefit to SUNY by using new international student tuition revenue to fund rapid expansion of scholarships to students, grants to faculty, and more.

“SUNY’s efforts in international student recruitment are unique nationally, and set the bar very high in terms of professional standards,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher, “SUNY intends to lead a national effort that will demonstrate how the presence of international student recruitment can qualitatively improve the academic experience for domestic students; improve the research capacities of our campuses; and boost revenue, creating opportunities for domestic students to study abroad and for faculty to better engage globally.” 

The new international student strategy is closely tied to SUNY’s strategic plan, The Power of SUNY, and the university’s role as an economic driver for New York State.

According to Mitch Leventhal, SUNY Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs, “What is unique here is that the SUNY system is managing agency relationships and providing the infrastructure, which frees up SUNY campuses to focus on their recruiting targets and how they relate to their academic mission.”

SUNY’s recruitment activities are intended to be the economic underpinning of a far more ambitious plan to create thousands of domestic study abroad scholarships and faculty internationalization grants that will be funded through international student tuition fees. 

SUNY intends to utilize its agency recruiting channel to increase international enrollment by 14,000 students over the next five years, to approximately 32,000 across all 64 campuses. If objectives are met, within five years SUNY will be able to offer more than 3,000 study abroad scholarships per year, 125 faculty internationalization grants, and fund many other campus internationalization activities. Initially, 29 campuses are part of the agency recruiting initiative.

Following more than a year of preparation and a months-long selection process, SUNY has started signing contracts with international student recruitment agencies around the world.  Twenty agencies were selected in the first round, with five contracts signed in late May.  Agencies to have signed on include China Education International, IAE Global, Global Reach, PAC Asia, and World Education Group.  These five agencies have recruiting activities in approximately thirty countries.

As a second round commences with a new RFP issued June 1, 2011 (deadline for submission Jul 8, 2011), SUNY will be adding more agencies soon, and plans to eventually have a global network of 50 to 75 agencies in as many countries. This next selection process will be completed by October 2011.

SUNY only considers agencies that are certified or candidates for certification through the American International Recruitment Council (AIRC) - the only national association focused on professional development and standards in the international student recruitment field.

About the State University of New York

The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States, educating more than 467,000 students in more than 7,500 degree and certificate programs on 64 campuses with nearly 3 million alumni around the globe. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu 

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