Marketing Olney as an International School

This is not a grand new vision for Olney, but an analysis of how to make Olney more financially sustainable fairly quickly with minimal change. Olney currently serves both a domestic and an international market, but it is much more financially successful in serving the latter than the former. We need to look at what the market is trying to tell us, and tailor what we supply to the differences between domestic and international demand. In brief, international students are more willing to pay a higher percentage of our tuition because they place a greater value on certain aspects of what we provide. Without detracting in any way from the traditional core of the Olney educational experience, we can do a better job of satisfying the particular needs of international students. Doing this will justify the higher average net tuition paid by this group, somewhat increase their numbers, and balance our budget.

The biggest change to the curriculum would be that the school would need a full-time ESL teacher and a much stronger and more intensive ESL program, maybe with the option of an intensive semester or year outside of the regular program for some students. Perhaps we could get student interns from schools of education who want to specialize in ESL education and who would work at Olney for a semester or a year for room and board and credits at their home school. Maybe we could ask native-English-speaking students who are receiving financial aid to give something back to the school in the form of a couple hours a week assisting the ESL teacher by running exercises or language games, editing/correcting (not grading) essays, or tutoring informally. Administration would require additional resources devoted to the complications involved in international admissions, record keeping, travel arrangements, etc.. The Admissions budget and strategies would have to be significantly changed.

 

Higher net tuition is the primary funding source for this proposal. The reason we have attracted increasing numbers of international students, and the reason that their families have been more willing to pay higher net tuition, is that in reality they are receiving greater value for their money. In addition to all the benefits—both material and nonmaterial—received by domestic students, international students receive two huge benefits that the domestic students already have and thus take for granted: immersive training in English, and access to the American system of secondary and higher education. Olney should more explicitly recognize this differentiation in its customers and in the products that they seek and we provide, and re-build its business model around that recognition. Though nominal tuition would be the same for domestic and international students, the net tuition paid would continue to be higher for internationals. Effectively, this would be a “two-tier” system, but one that is fully justified by the product differentiation and the resultant differentiation in value received and, therefore, in demand fulfilled

Better meeting the needs of international students, and a growing reputation as an international school, should lead to an increase in applications from that market, and increase the school’s ability to recruit full-tuition students. In an increasingly global world, a greater emphasis on international education may also enhance the school’s appeal to domestic students looking for a perspective not found in a typical American school

 

Olney will continue to provide a first-rate college preparatory education with 100% admission of graduates to good colleges and universities. We will continue our tradition of a Quaker education based on truthfulness, simplicity, equality, diversity, and non-violence, that helps students respond to the best that is in them through clear thinking, moral choice, useful work, service to others, and ongoing care of the natural environment in a safe and nurturing community.

author: Chuck Logan