GONE are the days when students would search and find college and university programmes to apply to by themselves or with the help of their parents, siblings and close friends. Now we have specialised individuals and companies, some large and fancy, that do it for those who can afford to pay. They have also come to Pakistan in a big way.

Higher education is big business, and typically foreign students pay far more than local ones, making them a financially attractive prospect to universities. Many universities have paid staff who help with international recruitment. Many even have ‘agents’ — individuals and firms — who work on a commission basis. On successful placement, universities pay them a part of the fees the student ends up paying. There is a thriving sub-agent market too: those who do the work for agents on a commission basis.

The other side of the ‘business’ is students looking for suitable universities and programmes. There are individuals and firms who, for a fee, ‘help’ students find the right programmes and universities. Some of these companies are well-established in Pakistan. Some of the people in these companies might have started out as ‘agents’ or recruiters for universities but over time the market has developed enough for them to have opened up companies themselves to act as agents for universities or individual students, and sometimes for high schools.

Admission ‘counselling’ and student ‘recruitment’ is big business now. Foreign degrees are generally considered more valuable than local ones. It is no surprise that many students and parents are willing to pay to have a better chance at being admitted. The more widely known a programme or university is, the higher is the willingness to pay. I am told that the low end of payment for admission counselling, development of application and applicant portfolio starts from about Rs150,000 and can go up to Rs2 million. Some of the better ‘reputed’ — for the results they yield — companies charge in dollar terms; that amount can go up to $4,000 or $5,000 per candidate.

The rise in admission counselling services is not surprising. But it does have consequences.

Admission counselling is clearly a need. A ‘market’ would not have developed had there not been an unmet need. Hundreds of thousands of young people with O-/A- levels and Matric/ Intermediate certifications are graduating from middle- to high-fee private schools. Pakistan does not have many good-quality undergraduate programmes, and students’ preference for foreign degrees has been noted. How will students and parents find the right programmes? They need guidance and counselling.

Getting the admission application right is no trivial task. Colleges and universities ask for a lot of information. Each student competes with a large pool of candidates, from across the world, for each position. How are students going to navigate the path? They need guidance and counselling. So, the rise in counselling services is not surprising. But it does have consequences which need to be internalised by the students, parents, schools, universities and governments. University ‘agents’ get a commission from the university on successful placement. This incentivises agents to try to match people with universities. If this means hiding some facts, the agents would be tempted to hide them.

Similarly, counselling companies get paid and build a reputation in the market due to successful admissions and happy clients. The admission process needs a lot of documentation. The temptation to move from ‘helping’ and ‘guiding’ students to writing their essays for them, tinkering with transcripts and getting letters of recommendation written for them or obtaining certificates for extracurricular activities can be hard to resist for many companies. We keep hearing this about some ‘counsellors’ and companies. Since both parties, the students and counsellors, have every reason to hide such (mal)practices, it would be difficult to find much evidence on this count, unless they become too blatant and the successfully placed child is not able to perform at the university, raising a red flag or leading to specific investigations.

Is there room for regulation here? Is there reason enough to regulate these companies, or should we leave this to the market so that bad practices are weeded out by universities blacklisting deviant companies. The market solution will take longer but will save the effort of trying to bring in regulation. And given that our government is terrible with regulating things, maybe we do not have much of an option. Could an industry association bring the players together and develop or evolve industry standards? Some of these questions will need to be answered soon.

While admission counselling is indeed needed, it does raise questions of equity and fairness at the larger level. Access to quality education is already tied to household incomes in Pakistan. You go to a good school only if your parents can afford to pay a high fee. Government schools and low-fee private schools generally do not offer high-quality education. If counselling services come with a price tag — which might be as high as $3,000 to $4,000 — the field becomes even more uneven. You go to a better school because you have a parental/ household income and then you get admitted to a better place because you can get better counselling. For instance, two students from the same sort of school might go to different universities, but with the weaker student admitted to a higher-ranked place because she had better counselling services thanks to a higher parental income. Merit is undermined and inequity exacerbated. It is just another layer on top of the very fragmented and iniquitous education system we have created in the country.

The admissions game has developed into a market with specialised players emerging to address gaps in provision. No doubt, universities need recruitment agents and students/ parents need admission counselling as college and university placement is a big decision in their life. But, like any other market, it creates room for unethical and illegal practices, and will have consequences for equity. Will these be addressed as markets mature or will it require some regulation?

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives, and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2024