U.S.

American Colleges Pay Agents to Woo Foreigners, Despite Fraud Risk

Campuses pay commissions to build foreign enrollment but sometimes get phony applications, ghostwritten essays

By Te-Ping Chen And Melissa Korn
Te-ping.Chen@wsj.com
@tepingchen
Melissa.Korn@wsj.com
@melissakorn

Sept. 30, 2015 10:18 p.m. ET

Like many U.S. colleges, Wichita State University wants more foreign students but isn’t a brand name abroad. ... So the school, whose mascot is a muscle-bound wheat bundle, in late 2013 started paying agents to recruit in places like China and India. The independent agents assemble candidates’ documents and urge them to apply to the Kansas school, which pays the agents $1,000 to $1,600 per enrolled student.

Overseas applications “shot up precipitously,” says Vince Altum, Wichita State’s executive director for international education. ... But there is a down side: Wichita State rejected several Chinese applications this year from an agency it suspected of falsifying transcripts, Mr. Altum says, adding that it terminates ties with agencies found to violate its code of conduct by faking documents.

Paying agents a per-student commission is illegal under U.S. law when recruiting students eligible for federal aid—that is, most domestic applicants. But paying commissioned agents isn’t illegal when recruiting foreigners who can’t get federal aid.

So more schools like Wichita State are relying on such agents, saying the intermediaries are the most practical way to woo overseas youths without the cost of sending staff around the world. No one officially counts how many U.S. campuses pay such agents, most of whom operate abroad, but experts estimate at least a quarter do so.