MSc Social Sciences
Master Thesis
Marketization Strategies of Dutch Higher Education Institutions
in China
By
Meihe Xu 12043990 August 2020
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Supervisor: Second Reader:
2 Abstract
With the commodification of higher education, China has become an attractive market for higher education institutions in the West since it is the world’s largest provider of international students. Based on multi-sited interviews conducted in the Netherlands and China, combined with digital data mining on related players, this paper explores the marketization strategies used by Dutch higher education institutions in China. It identifies three transnational marketization strategies: collective representation, outsourced recruitment, and outsourced promotion. This paper proposes that there exists an interwoven collaboration among the three afore-mentioned transnational strategies, which involve official, institutional and commercialized players in the Dutch and Chinese higher educational realms. In addition, this research also privileges students' voices, responses, and comments to the top-down endeavor of marketization and recruitment from Dutch higher education institutions and their strategies to find alternative resources through personal social networks. This research tries to fill a knowledge gap on existing literature regarding higher education
marketization by presenting the case of a non-English speaking country. It also offers some policy recommendations in the end on how to better promote Dutch higher education in China.
3 Introduction
On August 19th, 2018, around 9 pm, I was in a long queue waiting to be checked out for my flight from Beijing to Moscow, with my final destination to Amsterdam. While standing in boredom, I saw a group of five chatting in high spirits. I immediately sensed that their destination should also be Amsterdam since the flight I took was the most economical to arrive in Amsterdam on August 20th: pick-up day organized by University of Amsterdam (UvA). Indeed, they were coming first-year students, graduated from the same Singaporean high school under the same scholarship. And they decided to attend university in the
Netherlands instead of in Singapore. In addition to this jolly quintet, throughout my journey to Amsterdam, I met three female prospective graduate students from different universities across China, a freshman who completed her high school in Canada, another freshman who dropped out from a prestigious Chinese university and decided to have a fresh start in the Netherlands, a male exchange student from Tsinghua University and one female exchange student who studied in Hong Kong. Despite the differences in our previous education backgrounds and localities, we did share two things in common: we were all attending University of Amsterdam. And we all dealt with Nuffic, the Dutch organisation for internationalisation in education.
Every single Chinese national (except those from Hong Kong, Macaw, and Taiwan) who intends to study in higher education institutions in the Netherlands would deal with Nuffic at some point in their application processes since the attainment of a Nuffic certificate is mandatory for applicants to apply for a Dutch entry visa (authorisation for temporary stay, or MVV) and further for a resident permit1. Upon further research, however, Nuffic's role turns out to be more complicated than issuing certificates. Inwards, Nuffic serves as a provider of internationalization strategies for Dutch education institutions. Outwards, Nuffic possesses a triple identity: (1) as an independent, non-profit organization, (2) as a contract partner of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture & Science and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and (3) as a representative of the collective and individual Dutch higher education institutions in foreign markets.
Combined, Nuffic is an official, independent organization aiming to promote Dutch higher education outside of the Netherlands. China is an important market for the Dutch
1 From University of Amsterdam Website: https://www.uva.nl/en/education/bachelor-s/how-to-apply/dutch-taught-programmes/prior-education-non-dutch/information-for-chinese-applicants/chinese-students.html
4 higher educational sector. From 2006 to 2018, student numbers from China have increased slightly then stabilized from 3361 in 2006 to 4547 in 2018, making China the third-largest country to send students in the Netherlands, after Germany and Italy, and the largest country of origin for international students outside of E.U. For Dutch higher education, China is a strategically important market since Chinese students pay institutional tuition fees for their education in the Netherlands as non-EEA (European Economic Area) students, rather than statuary tier, a significantly cheaper amount. In the case of University of Amsterdam with one of its most popular programs: a one-year master's in Communication Sciences, the difference between statuary and institutional tuition fees is a drastic 2143 versus 16335 euros2.
For Chinese students, though they would pay significantly more than their European peers for their education in the Netherlands, the Netherlands is still an appealing overseas education destination since Dutch higher education enables one to achieves a balance between cost, university ranking, and language requirement. Tuitions and living costs are generally more expensive in native English-speaking countries such as the U.S. or U.K. than the Netherlands. Rankings of Dutch universities are competitive globally, indicating a certain degree of prestige and recognition in China and, as a result, a potential advantage in job seeking for prospective graduates. Besides, the Netherlands has a unique advantage over other European countries. It offers English programs on the graduate level, and on some bachelor's majors, minimizing language barriers for international students in general. All factors combined, the Netherlands appeals to the Chinese market because 1) it is economical and budget-friendly, 2) it has disciplines and universities that are competitive globally, such as law in Leiden University, communication sciences in University of Amsterdam, or food technologies in Wageningen University & Research, and 3) it does not require applicants to possess Dutch proficiency as an entry requirement.
On the other hand, for Dutch higher education with the neo-liberalization of higher education worldwide, how to market itself in China became critical since Chinese students can bring a significant amount of tuitions to Dutch universities. Hence the effort from the official governmental perspective to set up a field office of Nuffic in China, Neso China, is justified. I am interested in the role Neso China takes in marketizing Dutch higher education in China as an official representative. In addition to Neso, I also identified two other
marketization strategies employed by Dutch higher education: outsourced recruitment and outsourced promotion. Thus, this paper aims to explicate the following questions: How does 2 See UvA tuition fee calculator: https://uva-ac.topdesk.net/xfg/enguvawizard
5 Nuffic marketize and promote Dutch higher education in China? What are some other actors and strategies involved in the field, and what are their relations with Nuffic? How do Chinese applicants perceive and evaluate such marketization efforts? What are other information
channels used by Chinese applicants, and what are the relationships among different channels?
Literature Review
This paper will address three groups of literature: rationales for Chinese students to pursue overseas education, structural actors and students’ access to information regarding overseas education, and transnationalism and transnational social networks.
Researches have been conducted on Chinese students on why they decided to pursue overseas education. In general, overseas education often is employed as means instead of ends. For students from middle or upper-middle-class milieus, overseas education serves as a form of cultural capital to secure and reproduce middle-class statuses once they complete their education and return home. Due to the democratization of higher education in Hong Kong, the mass can now get access to local universities. As a result, overseas educations are considered to be more valuable than local credentials and serves as the key to better jobs and better pays, which further leads to the security of one's socioeconomic status (Waters, 2005, 2006). Yang, Sing and Ping (2013) demonstrate that in their study, prospective students choose to pursue overseas education with expectations of better economic return and employment prospects upon the completion of their overseas education.
On the other hand, for students with moderate family backgrounds, overseas education offers them access to the local job market as unskilled laborers in the form of "educationally channeled international labor mobility" for monetary gains (Liu-Farrer, 2009). In the case of Chinese students in Japan, some choose to enroll at language schools or
vocational schools in order to gain access to Japan. After their arrival in Japan, they focus primarily on working as low wage laborers and thus obtain monetary gains during their overseas education. Education is mainly used as camouflage and key to money-making. Furthermore, overseas education also serves as a means to the eventual path of permanent migration to the "receiving country." In what Shanthi Robertson (2011) calls "education-migration nexus," international students in Australia choose to enroll in vocational education and training programs as such programs would enhance their chance to gain permanent residence and eventually citizenship through the point system for migration in Australia.
In addition, overseas and transnational education is considered an alternative to Chinese higher education due to the lack of access for students to competitive, prestigious
6 Chinese universities (Fang, 2012). China's higher education underwent a top-down reform since 1998, aiming to make its higher education institutions more globally competitive, to enlarge recruitments, and thus to cultivate well-educated human resources for its economy (Liu, 2004). To achieve such goals, Project 211 and Project 985 were established that enlist a selected number of universities with the allocation of funds on researches and paper outputs. The ultimate goal of both Projects is to create world-class universities with global recognition. The substantial investment in a selective few could widen the gap between elite research universities and mass teaching institutions, creating an imbalance among higher education institutions and, consequently, affecting the quality of education for students. Further, it would intensify the competition among students to get admitted to those elite schools. In their study, Fang and Wong (2014) show that one of the factors that students choose to seek
alternatives to Chinese higher education, such as transnational programs, is that they could not get access to satisfying Chinese higher education institutions.
Students might choose overseas education because Chinese universities are not considered to be globally competitive or high up in rankings. Mohrman (2013) shows that even with heavy investment and resources on universities enlisted in Project 211 and Project 985, top Chinese universities might still not be considered to be globally competitive in aspects such as the absence of frequently cited scholars. On the other hand, as Hansen and Thorgersen (2015) point out, moral geography mediates preferences and decisions for students on where to study in relation to the global education hierarchy. Such hierarchy defines where the most valuable knowledge and schools reside. As a result, students might prefer to pursue an education overseas in countries where prominent scholars in various disciplines reside or where universities are subjectively considered to be better than their Chinese counterparts.
In conclusion, a pursuit for overseas education can be motivated by various reasons, such as being an alternative to an immensely competitive local higher education, as a way to get access to perceived better programs or schools on a global scale, as a gateway to better economic gains and job opportunities, as a medium to make monetary gains or permanent migrations. Nevertheless, knowing Chinese students' rationales does not suffice in terms of understanding why they opt for specific schools and countries instead of others.
7
Structural Actors and Access to Information
Motivations from individuals are certainly not sufficient to actualize a study abroad project. It is also affected by structural actors such as higher education institutions and nation-states. In this section, two main factors are discussed: the marketization of higher education institutions and receiving state policies regarding student migrants.
To begin with, hosting international students is a lucrative business. International students contribute 11.4 billion dollars to Canada's economic activities, 25.8 billion pounds to the U.K., and 21 billion dollars to the U.S. (Global Affairs Canada, 2016; Universities U.K., 2017; New York Times, 2012; Business Insiders, 2016). In the Netherlands, each Chinese student spends an average of 15,000 euro on tuitions a year to Dutch higher education institutions. Compared to a statutory tuition fee of 2,000 euro paid by Dutch and E.U. students, even a mere .52 percent of Chinese students overseas in the Netherlands would contribute 69 million euro in tuitions to the Dutch economy annually, not to mention other economic activities related to their overseas education, such as housing and food
(StudyinHolland, 2019).
From the data above, international students are important contributors and consumers to higher education institutions and their education offered in the receiving countries. One shaping factor of such a phenomenon is the marketization of higher education institutions. Marketization refers to "the process of creating new markets for products which were previously shielded from market exchange and price mechanisms" (Findley et al, 2017). Higher education in many countries is increasingly and significantly shaped by neo-liberal economic forces, which favors the idea of higher education as private goods consumable to those who are able to pay, instead of as a public good or right available to all. A direct result of such neoliberal marketization is that higher education institutions now marketize their education products in a global market instead of just locally. However, many institutions narrow their potential application pools to only a few regions in the world whose applicants can afford to pay full tuition. Such an act prioritizes finance over the intellectual quality of applicants. In the case of U.K., by marketing the product of education to international
students, especially those from non-EU regions, British universities are able to become more financially independent from U.K. government funding, giving them more leverage on research and development investments (Findlay, McCollum, and Packwood, 2017; Beech 2017). And in Japan, many Japanese vocational schools are able to survive the dwindling of local student enrollments thanks to the enrollment and tuition fees from Chinese students (Liu-Farrer, 2009).
8 Thus, international students' mobility is subject to the (degree of) marketization of higher education institutions in the receiving countries. The more marketized an institution is, the more recruitment it will grant to international students, and hence the more likely for an international student who is financially capable of being accepted.
On the other hand, the internationalization of higher education institutions is subjected to nation-states' policies in which those institutions are located, especially with regard to migration policies. Findlay et al. shows (2017) that globalized and marketized higher education institutions in the U.K. need to switch their marketization campaign focus from access to local job markets to overseas education experience after the British government changed their migration policy to minimize international students' chances to stay following their completion of education. In Beech's interview with one university administrator, she mentions that when Britain started to implement a stricter migration policy, restricting international students' access to jobs and permanent residences/citizenships after their education, her school's rate of application from India dropped by 70%, a clear indication on the influence of state policies. Beech and Wotherspoon (2013) further confirmed that state policies regarding migration do not always go along with universities by studying migration policies of the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. The study shows that migration policies in various degrees influence both the mobility of students and the recruitment of international students by universities. A direct consequence of such disjunction between higher education
institutions and states is that universities increasingly brand and marketize themselves as offerors of an education/experience that will make their students globally competitive or of a perspective of global citizenships, instead of obtaining access to local job markets or a path to permanent migration.
As a consequence, international students' mobility is mediated both by state policies regarding migration measures, and admission criteria of individual higher education
institutions with an emphasis on the full tuition-paying capability of international applicants, in addition to the intersection of the two actors, since admission criteria need to accommodate state policies. As many receiving states gradually embrace protectionist, restrictive migration policies on student migrants, current researches emphasize the disjuncture, or conflict of interest, between countries and higher education institutions. This research focuses on a less discussed topic in exiting literature: how states and higher education institutions collaborate on attracting international students to study in their universities. Instead of examining Chinese students' motivation to study in the Netherlands, this research shifts focus to the
9 application process and explores how Chinese students achieve their study abroad dreams and plans.
With the marketization and thus neo-liberalization of higher education institutions and the education industry, international students' access to information becomes a significant interest to structural actors considering a better permeation of information to international students would mean more applications and enrollments to certain schools in certain countries. As a result, researches have been conducted from the perspective of structural actors on international students' access and use of information. In addition to official channels of information such as university websites, unofficial channels of information are also widely used by international students. Chang et al. (2012) find that international students from different social network groups all rely on unofficial channels such as family connections or education brokers to get access to information on life and study in Australia prior to arrival. Survey results from the study of Hong et al. (2017) concurs as more than half of Chinese undergraduate and graduate students used services provided by educational brokers when applying to Dutch higher education institutions. Alzougool et al. (2013) find that the access and sharing of offline sources of information such as word of mouth in one's social network are used extensively by international students in Australia.
Nevertheless, the unofficial channels of information in an international student's network have not been much researched. On the other hand, the main focus of researches on international students' information access seems to be put upon how and why universities need to better enhance the dissemination of information through official and organized channels of information such as commercial, educational brokers or universities websites as well as social media accounts. Such projects seem to prioritize better promotion and
marketization of higher education institutions than better serve their international student bodies. This paper aims to privilege the students' voice, their responses and comments to the top-bottom endeavor of marketization and recruitment, and their strategies to negotiate in the world of neo-liberalized higher education.
Transnationalism and Transnational Social Networks
Academia has not reached a consensus on the precise definition of transnationalization. Instead, the word is explained through its comparison to globalization. Faist (2000) argues that "transnationalization overlaps globalization but typically has a more limited purview. Whereas global processes are largely decentered from specific nation-state territories and take place in a world context above and below states, transnational processes are anchored in
10 and span two or more nation-states, involving actors from the spheres of both state and civil society". From Faist, transnationalization focuses on specific nation-states involved in the process and contains actors from involving states. Hofmeister and Breitenstein (2008) consider the word transnationalization to be a more accurate description of globalization as transnationalization highlights the transnational nature of such processes, while globalization emphasizes the effect of being global. The emphasis of transnationalization is placed upon specific countries and the border-crossing nature of related acts and actors.
As a result, transnationalization can describe a global process across nation-state borders, as in the case of transnationalization of student recruitment, which is the process of student recruitment that crosses specific nation-state boundaries with actors involved from both states. Conrad and Meyer-Ohle (2018) apply the concept of transnationalization on skilled migration to Japan. In their paper, the Japanese recruitment system has been
transnationalized as Japanese brokers are able to recruit on behalf of Japanese employers to hire qualified, skilled migrants outside of Japan without the assistance of local brokers. The Japanese brokers establish collaborations with local universities directly and have direct contact with skilled migrants. They possess the ability to mold students into desirable job candidates catering to the preference of Japanese employers. In this case, Japanese labor recruitment is practiced beyond Japan's national borders and can influence the recruitment process overseas. Many higher education institutions also rely on agents to find and recruit potential students on their behalf. But this time, agents from local markets. Beech (2018) shows that many British higher education institutions get access to their potential students through a network of international education agents who work as middlemen and gatekeepers to international students. In the case of China, unlike British universities that rely on local brokers to recruit students, it seems that Dutch higher education institutions might be able to minimize the involvement of Chinese education brokers and recruit students in China directly through Nuffic Neso China. Therefore, this paper will examine the transnationalized
recruitment efforts of Dutch higher education institutions in China with the possible facilitation of Neso China and potentially other organizational actors.
Moreover, I will adopt Gargano's (2009) definition on transnational social fields as "spaces for the exchange, organization, and transformation of ideas, practices, and social networks," focusing on the functions transnational social fields serve instead of the
components of such fields. In my research, I want to emphasize the importance of structural factors that compose transnational social fields and how a network of interlocking structural
11 actors influences the exchange, organization, and transformation of ideas, practices, and resources across nation-states' borders.
Since the main focus of the existing corpus regarding transnationalism of international students is placed upon students who are already transient migrants, that is, they already settled in their study-abroad destinations, it leaves the population of applicants, individuals who are applying to higher education institutions overseas, and the transnational social networks they might possess overlooked from the picture. Existing researches have discussed applicants' and parents' collaborations with commercial brokers. In Lan's (2019) study, many parents and students depend upon private agents who have connections abroad to recommend schools or arrange applications on their behalf. Yet little is known regarding applicants' transnational social networks on how they facilitate applicants' applications and preparations for their journeys abroad and how they reinforce or resist the marketization strategies of states and higher education institutions worldwide.
Network sociality from Wittel (2001) will be employed to understand the morphology of applicants' transnational social networks, which is the making of a particular type of social relations that are informational, ephemeral, and intense, contrary to traditional social relations which are based upon narrations, commonalities, and durations. Network sociality prioritizes the instrumentality and functionality of social relations, which can be further commodified or even monetized. Wittel proposes that network sociality can be most discerned among the "the new middle class of culturally educated and media- and computer-literate people" (p.p. 53) and in the cultural industry, indicating that network sociality might be a product of neo-liberalization. I would propose that network sociality can also be observed among Chinese applicants to overseas higher education institutions. The resulting social relations and networks formed are often used as a complement to official or organized channels of information.
How to Apply to A Dutch Higher Education Institution
This section consists of two parts: first, I will discuss the Dutch higher education system, then I will briefly introduce prerequisite procedures that Chinese applicants need to complete in order to pursue their overseas education in the Netherlands. This section aims to offer context for the later sections and explain necessary background information regarding Dutch higher education and applications as it can be quite different from its equivalents elsewhere.
12 The Netherlands has two trajectories regarding its higher education: HBO specializing in higher professional education and WO that focuses on university education. The two types of education are offered by HBO institutions (hogescholen) and universities, respectively. There are in total 43 HBO institutions and 13 universities in the Netherlands. Once applicants decide to apply to higher education institutions in the Netherlands, they will need to fulfill an array of procedures and requirements. At the bachelor’s level, WO applicants need to possess valid gaokao grades along with a one-year attendance in a Chinese university as
prerequisites3. HBO applicants do not need to meet the same conditions. However, HBO applicants usually need to attend an offline interview with a hogeschool admission
officer/representative before being considered for admission, while WO applicants are not required to take interviews. For WO applications, students will need to upload general documents on studielink and specific ones to institutions’ own platforms4. Once applicants decide to accept an offer, they will next prepare for visa applicants. Individuals cannot apply for visas themselves, rather their sponsors, in this case, institutions, will apply for them. It is mandatory for applicants to attain a Nuffic certificate to proceed, which is used to
authenticate an applicant's previous diploma(s) and their English proficiency. As visa applications are approved, applicants will then schedule an interview at a Dutch consulate and be ready at the legal level for their education in the Netherlands.
Methodology
The data for this research was collected via archival research and in-depth interviews. Archival research, or qualitative data mining, was conducted on the official websites of Nuffic, Neso China, Dutch universities, and educational consulting or brokerage companies in China, to compile a better understanding of related actors and their plethora of tasks. Interviews were primarily conducted with alumni, prospective and current students of Dutch higher education institutions on their usage of information channels and their reflections on the efficacy of such channels. I first used my network to recruit participants, then followed the snowball sampling methods to recruit more participants for interviews. The goal is to first obtain a panorama of information channels available, used by Chinese applicants, to identify components of existing information channels that belong to marketization strategies
employed by Dutch higher education to approach applicants and enrolled students, and 3 Gaokao, or The National College Entrance Examination, is a standardized test held annually that serves as a prerequisite for undergraduate admission in China
4 Studielink is the national application portal for Dutch higher education programs, similar to Common Application used in the U.S.
13 finally to comprehend and evaluate marketization efforts from the vantage point of the
receiving end—Chinese applicants, and on how they use, compare and cross-reference with other information sources.
In addition to interviews with students and applicants, I secured two interviews with employees working for companies that collaborate with Dutch higher education: Evelyn and Paul. Evelyn works for a consultancy company named Forward that represents European higher education institutions in China. One of Forward's notable clients is University of Amsterdam, my own institution. Paul works for a recruitment and consultancy organization called Bravo that collaborates predominantly with HBO institutions and pre-bachelor/master's programs at WO institutions in the Netherlands, as well as small, local brokers in China. Both companies represent models of marketization employed by Dutch higher education
institutions in China, along with the presence and efforts of Neso China.
I attempted to reach out to Neso China, asking for interview or observation opportunities but was denied access. One possible explanation is that my credibility as a student is minuscule, the other is that Neso offices have been going through a crisis for quite a while. In fact, around the time I asked for access, The Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science proposed a significant fund cutoff to Nuffic's budget, effective in 2021. The result could lead to the closure of all Neso offices5. As a result, Neso China perhaps did not want to draw extra attention by granting me access.
My data collection was multi-sited and stretched over four months, from September to December 2019 across two continents and two countries: Europe and Asia, the Netherlands and China. The reason is to reflect on the transnationalization of marketization strategies and ensure a fuller picture of students' receptions and utilization of information sources at
different phases. A multi-sited data collection allows a richer material collection since I can conduct interviews with students at various stages of their application processes and their study pursuits, which further grants a broader spectrum of perspectives from participants. Fifteen interviews were conducted in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, consisting of alumni and current students from various Dutch higher education institutions. Eighteen interviews were conducted in Beijing and Guangzhou, China, including applicants of the 2019 application season, students and individuals planning to apply to Dutch institutions in the future, along with Evelyn and Paul.
14 From my participant pool, it seems that applicants disproportionately opt for master's programs instead of bachelor's ones. Partially due to a potentially biased sample, it can also be explained by the fact that for applicants who completed high school in China, the cost would just be too high to pursue undergraduate studies in the Netherlands, first and foremost contributed by admission requirements for Chinese applicants. Not only should applicants finish high school and take the college entrance exam, but they also need to enroll in a Chinese university for a year to be eligible to apply for a bachelor's program in the
Netherlands. In addition to the cost of time, a language barrier could also obstruct Chinese students from applying to Dutch bachelor's programs. There are a limited number of bachelor's programs that offer English-taught education in the Netherlands. As for HBO programs, Chinese applicants do not need to have gaokao grades nor a year in college as prerequisites. Yet HBO institutions are not considered as an equal to universities by Chinese students. Consequently, by comparison, applying for graduate programs is a more cost-effective option for Chinese applicants if they wish to study in the Netherlands.
Information Sources of Chinese Applicants
Since overseas education is a huge investment with considerable expenditure, applicants and their families would prefer to be well-informed so as to make the best decision on where to pursue an overseas education. As a result, they want to absorb as much information as possible to make the right choice.
There are three categories of information sources and two media to attain them: official channels, commercialized channels, and personal networks; offline/physical medium and its digital counterpart. Official channels consist of university websites, official accounts of universities on social media, and information sources from official organizations such as Nuffic Neso or Dutch embassy and consulates. Commercialized channels are comprised of education brokers whose information is in general regarded to be highly selective,
exaggerated, sanitized, or incomplete, with the ultimate goal to entice applicants to purchase their service packages or to enroll in schools with which they have collaborations. In general, applicants consider university websites to be the most trustworthy and objective. At the same time, brokers are taken to be biased and money-oriented, often not working for the best interest of their clients, applicants. Personal networks are comprised of strong and weak ties from real life such as friends, upper-level students and alumni, and from the digital space
15 such as Vloggers6. Applicants utilize their personal networks to obtain personal experiences, reflections and remarks on a program or country, and perspectives that might be overlooked or neglected from official sources. Personal networks are meant to complement official channels on what they are lacking or absent. Offline medium includes events, consultations and promotion materials, such as university fairs, promotion seminars and prospectuses, etc. On the other hand, the digital medium refers to activities, materials, and communication based upon digital platforms, including but not limited to webinars, group chats, or discussion forums.
There is a growing trend in the waning effect of offline information sources, partially due to their limitations or dependence on localities. At the moment of this paper, a pandemic is prevalent and making an impact on the entire globe, which would further curtail the influence of offline information sources. On the other hand, information from personal networks are taken into more consideration on applicants' calculation regarding overseas education countries of destination, institutions and further, specific programs, as personal networks are capable of providing angles and personal experiences outside of university or broker promotions, and beyond quantitative, numerical rankings.
As will be discussed later, the interwoven nature of official and commercialized sources with digital medium becomes a ubiquitous marketization practice for Dutch higher education and education brokers in China. Furthermore, relevant actors, especially from commercialized channels, intend to blend in with applicants' personal networks, camouflaged behind measures such as infomercials, and to gain trust from applicants so as to further promote and marketize their services.
Marketization Strategies
There are three main strategies Dutch higher education institutions practice to marketize in China: collective representation, outsourced recruitment, and outsourced promotion. Collective representation is channeled through Neso China, as it claims to represent the Dutch knowledge sector in China, including both HBO and WO institutions. Outsourced recruitment is predominantly employed by HBO institutions with Chinese education brokers who would refer students for recruitment. Upon each successful recruitment, institutions will give referral fees to brokers. Outsourced promotion is commissioned mainly by research universities (WO) to Chinese consultancy companies whose objective is to offer tailor-made 6 Strong/weak tie is a concept raised by Granovetter (1973) based upon time of contact and similarity
16 strategies and represent their clients to better promote in the Chinese market. Three cases will be discussed below to elucidate each strategy: Neso China, Bravo Foundation, and Forward Education International.
Collective Representation: Nuffic and Neso
Before contemplating roles Nuffic carries for Dutch higher education in China and for Chinese applicants, it is essential first to elucidate the difference and relationship between Nuffic and Neso. Nuffic stands for the Dutch Organization for Internationalization in
Education with its headquarter based in the Hague. As indicated in the name, the central task of Nuffic involves the internationalization of Dutch education. To do so, Nuffic offers internationalization services for all levels of Dutch education and collaborates with national and international partners to actualize its goal. Neso, on the other hand, stands for
the Netherlands Education Support Offices that represent the Dutch knowledge economy abroad on site7. There are ten Neso offices stationed in countries that are considered
strategically crucial for Dutch higher education. In other words, Neso offices are field offices of Nuffic, aiming primarily to promote the Dutch knowledge sector on site along with
pushing for bidirectional mobility of students from both the Netherlands and countries where Neso offices are located.
It is worth noting that the nature of Neso China is quite different from its fellow Neso offices. According to its website, Neso China is, in fact, a collaborative office of Nuffic and China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE), a hybrid rather than a field office entirely operated by Nuffic. As Lan (2019) mentioned, though CEAIE is
registered as a non-profit organization with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, it is, as a matter of fact, operated by the Ministry of Education. Considering that both Nuffic and CEAIE have official backgrounds, either sponsored by or run along with government ministries, Neso China can be regarded as an official representative. Its operation might be under notable constraints.
In general, Nuffic and its Neso offices are an agglomeration of various roles, from fund allocations and promotion of Dutch education to brokerage and alumni maintenance. Neso China would collaborate with Study in Holland team to increase the quality and
diversity of international students coming to the Netherlands, connect international graduates to the Dutch labor market in sectors where skilled labors are in shortage through the Holland 7 For further information, check https://www.nuffic.nl/en/subjects/international-offices/
17 Alumni Network, collaborate with local institutions to host Dutch students and manage funds for scholarships, group training, partnership projects, and alumni events.
But more importantly, Neso China specifically carries out such roles in a transnational manner. They facilitate the transnationalization of promotion and student recruitment in collaboration with structural actors in China and the Netherlands, in which multiple structural actors of states (receiving and sending), higher education institutions (from receiving and sending countries) and Neso China cooperate to attract Chinese students to pursue their overseas education in the Netherlands and finalize their enrollments in Dutch schools. For example, in October 2019, Neso China sponsored and participated in an education fair called "China Education Expo" hosted by CEAIE in Beijing, representing the Dutch knowledge sector collectively. At the event, Neso China invited representatives from The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, and InnoEnergy Master School to their stand, bridging students of interest at the fair to Dutch higher education institutions across borders of nation-states in a transnational, collaborative manner. Neso China has also organized promotional seminars in collaboration with international offices from various Chinese universities, as in the case with China University of Political Science and Law, which one of my participants helped to actualize as a volunteer.
However, it is important to stress that from the Chinese applicants' perspective, they do not perceive to be actively approached by Neso China, nor do they understand the relation between Neso China and Nuffic. Even though Neso China manages to carry out events and collaborations with Chinese universities or brokers in a transnational manner, its efforts either are not directed to individual applicants or are not acknowledged by applicants. The locality of offline events further impedes applicants from attending, making marketization even more ineffective to Chinese applicants.
My participants only heard about Nuffic because of the mandatory requirement of acquiring a Nuffic Certificate to complete their entry visa applications. Otherwise, their first response was bewilderment. Nuffic Certificate is a unique requirement for Chinese applicants who wish to study in the Netherlands, which interestingly is also conducted in a transnational manner. It is an assessment of an applicant's English proficiency as well as the authenticity and qualification of one's degrees and diplomas. Such an evaluation first started as Neso Certificate in 2004 and was issued by Neso China as a way to screen qualified candidates with credentials. At the time, the assessment of documents and issuing of certificates were all conducted and completed within China, a responsibility of Neso China. In 2010, Neso
18 headquarter in the Hague instead of Neso China's office in Beijing8. Not only is a Nuffic Certificate now assessed and issued transnationally between the Netherlands and China, but it also underwent a transference of handlers, from Neso China to Nuffic.
In effect, Nuffic Certificate is notarization of applicants' credentials and a pre-immigration screening tool, giving Nuffic a function beyond mere internationalization of Dutch education. It could also indicate a neo-liberalization of government as pre-immigration assessment and screening are now outsourced to a non-government organization. Moreover, it also indicates that the most frequent encounters Chinese applicants have with Nuffic/Neso is on notarization and screening, instead of Dutch higher education promotion and
marketization as Nuffic/Neso advertises on their websites. Thus, instead of promotion, Nuffic and Neso China rather leave their mark on Chinese applicants in terms of assessment and screening, a function unseen on other Neso offices worldwide. The inadequacy of Neso China on marketizing to Chinese applicants potentially catalyzes the use of other measures to marketize for Dutch higher education institutions in China.
Outsourced Recruitment: The Bravo Way
While marketization strategies of Neso China regarding Dutch higher education are carried out collectively and directed at fellow structural actors such as international offices in universities, outsourced recruitment, exemplified by Bravo, is a marketization/recruitment strategy used mainly by HBO institutions through a chain of brokers in China. In the same China Education Expo next to Nuffic Neso tables stood the table of Bravo Foundation, filled with flyers and brochures about HBO institutions and OnCampus programs: pre-bachelor and pre-master programs for research universities. At first, I assumed that Bravo was an ordinary education brokerage company, charging students for application packages. But its model of revenue is the other way around: commission fees from HBO institutions for each successful referral.
Higher education institutions in countries like the UK (Beech, 2018) and Australia (Choudaha & Chang, 2012) have long adopted the usage of education agents to look for potential applicants in exchange for commission-based fees for every successful recruitment. However, in the case of the Netherlands, outsourced promotion is mainly used by HBO institutions, a faction of the Dutch higher education. Similar to commission models used by the UK or Australia, HBO institutions outsource their recruitment nonexclusively to Bravo so 8 See more at https://www.wittenborg.eu/dutch-government-close-neso-offices.htm
19 that Bravo will carry out recruitment in China on behalf of its clients. Unlike other education brokers that work with students directly, Bravo mainly collaborates with a chain of small Chinese education brokers who would recruit students for Bravo. A key difference is that Bravo and regular education brokers have different clientele. To Bravo, its clients are higher education institutions in the Netherlands, while clientele of education brokers is individuals who need the service of brokers to apply for overseas programs. Bravo operates under a business model, while regular brokers would operate under a business-to-customer model. Such model also explains the localities of Bravo offices: one in Beijing to collaborate with small brokers and the other in Amstelveen to cooperate with HBO and OnCampus clients. Combined, Bravo carries outsourced recruitment transnationally, bridging between institutions in the Netherlands and brokers in China.
Commercialized actors like Bravo have increasingly attempted to enter personal networks of applicants on the digital space as a way to obtain potential customers. However, they would camouflage themselves as an objective third party with nil interests involved. During my fieldwork, I interviewed Paul, founder of an application DIY group with more than three hundred members interested in applying to Dutch higher education institutions for the 2019 application season. The group serves as a peer support platform where if a member encounters a question rendering their applications, other members who experienced or underwent similar situations before can answer it. While one of my participants views this group as a weak tie in her personal network and reckons it as quite helpful, Paul told me that his original intention was to find potential applicants for his company, Bravo. Bravo was experimenting a transition to rely less on small brokers for student referrals since it becomes harder for small brokers to recruit students nowadays.
One reason is that information asymmetry between applicants and education brokers shrinks throughout the years due to the emergence and widespread use of the internet combined with personal networks of applicants. Thus, applicants are able to have a more comprehensive understanding of HBO education, especially its difference from research universities. On the other hand, as the vast majority of Chinese applicants are self-funded for their overseas education, they would opt for the best programs/institutions within their financial capabilities. By comparison, HBO institutions are less appealing despite its relatively more affordable tuitions.
From my interviews, applicants who went to HBO institutions through brokers are not content with their brokers due to the incomplete information and limited school options the latter provided. One of my very first participants, Toloran, has stayed in the Netherlands for
20 six years. She first enrolled in Hanze University of Applied Sciences (Hanzehogeschool Groningen) in Groningen and then transferred to Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool Wittenborg) in Apeldoorn. Her enrollment in hogeschool is the result of
following her education broker's advice, who did not offer her much choice, nor the critical information on the differences between hogeschool and research universities. Toloran told me that her broker collaborated with Dutch schools and presented her with a couple of choices. She was then arranged to have interviews in Beijing with those schools. Due to her trust in her broker and lack of information channels to double-check, she ended up in Hanze. She spent two unhappy years in a place where she considered as "conservative, rigid, and an overall bad experience."
Similarly, another participant, Olivia, was also arranged to enroll in a hogeschool in a small town near Rotterdam through her broker with similar processes and experiences like that of Toloran's: list of HBO institutions, lack of explanations on the difference between HBO and WO institutions, arranged interviews, bad experiences, and transference to a different school.
Both participants agreed that they would not use a broker service or enroll in a hogeschool if given a chance and fully informed. It is worth noting that both participants' brokers seem to operate under the same mode as Bravo: recruiting students on behalf of institutions in the Netherlands. But they make a profit through both referral fees from institutions and services for applicants.
Outsourced Promotion: The Forward Way
While HBO institutions use outsourced recruitment to marketize in China, WO institutions opt for outsourced promotion instead, as indicated in Forward, who represents University of Amsterdam for its promotion in China.
During my fieldwork, almost all of my participants from UvA mentioned the importance and usefulness of WeChat groups created by the account UvA_China on
obtaining and exchanging information among fellow UvA students and attendants9. The name itself seems to denote a degree of legitimacy. My participants assumed that the account is operated by staff working for UvA, perhaps someone working in the international office. When I asked where participants knew about such WeChat groups' existence, the most response I received was that they saw posts from StudyinUvA. StudyinUvA is an official
21 account on WeChat. Official account is a concept that is largely used to differentiate from personal accounts, but by no means guarantees officiality. Yet, according to the introduction of StudyinUvA, it is "the official account of University of Amsterdam. Thereof, StudyinUvA, or the official account of UvA on WeChat, is the organizer of WeChat groups for Chinese students attending UvA based upon graduating classes ('UvA Chinese Students Class of 2020', for example).
Around April and May each year, StudyinUvA would post an article informing the availability of a WeChat group for the upcoming class. Since such WeChat groups are invitations only, students need to authenticate their identity as prospective attendees of UvA by showing their offers and UvAnetID to the account UvA_China. Hence, the personal account of UvA_China is mainly used to verify students' eligibility for joining group chats. Many times, upper-level students from other class years would join the group as well. In essence, these WeChat groups serve as a platform of information exchange, buy and sell as well as medium to know fellow students of the same program, flight, or student housing complexes. As one participant said, "Prior to departure, the WeChat group helps more on finalizing enrollment procedures and other logistics such as visa applications. After coming to the Netherlands, it becomes more helpful in everyday life". And everyday life, the
mundane reality that students need to confront starting even before the moment their feet touch the ground of the Netherlands, is in absence from official, structural sources such as Nuffic Neso or university websites, which prioritize promotion and application over post-application matters. Completion of post-applications is by no means the end of studying abroad, nor does it clear the stage in China. Instead, it is a prelude of many more chores to come.
In defense of official structural sources, they do post matters such as housing or taxes on their websites, but the contents are general and vague, thus not considered helpful. A plausible explanation of the imbalance of information provided on official sources is that higher education institutions prioritize attracting and recruiting students due to the recent trend of neo-liberalization of higher education. If higher education now holds a new element as a commodity, promoting and selling it to new customers trumps over after-sale services, in this case, post-application questions and overall services for international students. On the other hand, application procedures and requirements are more standardized and objective than post-application items, meaning that application-related questions are easier to be covered as clusters in official sources than post-application ones.
At first, I assumed that StudyinUvA's practice of creating WeChat groups for Chinese students was a means to cover the inadequacy of UvA websites on covering and explaining
22 post-application topics, even though such groups serve more as a support net among fellow students than a dialogue between UvA and students. And I surmised that organizing WeChat groups was standard practice for Dutch higher education institutions. However, to my
surprise, my other participants from other Dutch universities told me that they only have unofficial ones organized by fellow students, unlike the ones UvA students have, which are arranged by a seemingly official account of their institution.
As a result, curiosity brews since on paper Nuffic Neso is supposed to promote and represent the Dutch knowledge sector, including and not limited to Dutch higher education institutions in China. I wonder if StudyinUvA is a parallel, independent marketization strategy or a subsidiary to Neso China. Thus, it becomes pivotal for me to
contact StudyinUvA and understand its nature since it plays a vital role in marketing UvA and organizing medium of communication for students in China. It came to me that Evelyn is the person behind UvA_China since her WeChat biography writes, "UvA Chinese Representative Office, Evelyn." I contacted Evelyn asking if it's possible for me to talk to her to try my luck. She is also the person that runs all the UvA accounts on social media, such as Weibo,
WeChat and a live-streaming platform. She agreed for a talk after validating my identity as a UvA student.
Her office is on the brink of the fourth ring of Beijing in an industry park, for mostly IT companies, different from the location of Neso China in Xicheng, adjoining the second ring, though interestingly by no means near the proximity of the Netherlands Embassy in the diplomatic district of Chaoyang10. When I entered, it was a small office of approximately 80-100 m2 without apparent, discernable signs of UvA. Evelyn wasn't the only person that wanted to meet me, so was her boss, Vincent, who first worked in Neso for a couple of years in charge of communication and promotion of Dutch schools with education brokers. It was under the years of Vincent's service that big names in Chinese education brokers such
as Qide or Jinjilie started to open up departments specifically for Dutch universities. After his Neso years, Vincent moved to open this company with his business partner, a then deputy director of Neso China. Their company is mainly responsible for representing European universities in China with notable clients, including University of Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Utrecht University.
According to Vincent, their work concerns about representing their clients' best interests and is solely on their clients' behalf. Hence, the organization of UvA WeChat groups
23 is an extension of promotional work based on the client-first ideology to ensure positive remarks from current students, which might be beneficial later for promotion, either through their promotional campaigns or personal networks. As Binsardi and Ekwulugo (2003) suggest, alumni networks are considered the most effective promotional channel for British higher education institutions on the global market. Similarly, the creation of such WeChat groups can serve the same purpose as building good relationships with current and future alumni. In addition, Forward only created platforms where UvA students are able to communicate. There is minimal maintenance or management involved in these group chats.
All three marketization strategies embrace social media presence and have created official accounts on WeChat under the names of Neso China, Bravo Education Group, and StudyinUvA, respectively. The purpose of these accounts is utilitarian and functional: to offer information and promote, with the end goal of increasing recruitments. It is worth noting that there are some fundamental differences between WeChat groups founded by Paul and Evelyn: officiality, stages of application, and student origins. The group founded by Paul is unofficial and contains students interested in various universities in the Netherlands. And it is mainly advertised through word of mouth and through a social media platform called Douban. Groups created by Evelyn are considered and advertised as official group chats and are composed of entirely students from UvA. Moreover, Paul's WeChat group focuses mainly on school selections and application procedures, on individuals who do not have an offer from a program. On the other hand, Emily's groups focus on post-application questions and tasks, consisting of students who have completed their applications and have already received and decided to enroll in University of Amsterdam.
In addition to WeChat group chats and setting up official accounts on Chinese social media on behalf of UvA, Forward also conducts promotional campaigns during application seasons. Some are held in a transnational manner while others locally in China. Video live streaming exemplifies transnational promotion services offered by Forward. During application seasons, Forward would host live video streaming on a Chinese streaming
platform to introduce some of the most popular programs in UvA among Chinese applicants, such as business administration or communication sciences. The introduction and Q&A sessions are hosted by admission officers and current students at UvA campuses in Amsterdam, while most of the audiences are applicants in China. With the assistance of digital technologies, Forward is able to connect UvA and applicants across nation-state borders transnationally.
24 Establishments of companies like Forward that carry out promotion and
representation duties for foreign higher education institutions in China are no coincidence. In fact, they appeal to the needs of foreign institutions bounded by legal restrictions and limited resources. According to Vincent, there used to be two conventional approaches for higher education institutions to promote in China: one is to set and operate their own offices. The other is to collaborate with local education brokers. Both approaches have their drawbacks and could not suffice. Due to legal restrictions, non-governmental organizations are not allowed to set up direct offices in China but instead need to collaborate with a Chinese counterpart, except a few such as deutscher akademischer austauschdienst, that is, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Such legal restriction explains the collaborative nature of Neso China between Nuffic and CEAIE.
Meanwhile, direct offices would be costly to maintain and operate, which might not be the most economical option for foreign institutions. On the other hand, collaborations with education brokers could avoid the hassle on maintenance and legal restrictions. Nonetheless, such partnerships could be impeded by communication issues due to the language
incompetency of both admission officers and education brokers, not to mention the amount of work if institutions decide to cooperate with multiple brokers. As a result, a third way
emerges: higher education institutions would outsource their promotions in the Chinese market to local Chinese companies on behalf of the before-mentioned institutions as exclusive representatives. Such companies do not take recruitment responsibilities but are only authorized to conduct localized marketization and promotional endeavors in China.
Upon further research on Vincent's company, Forward, I realized that Forward's outsourced responsibility for Dutch higher education institutions extends beyond sheer promotion on Chinese social media. Instead, social media presence is just the tip of an iceberg in terms of its services. On the website, Forward lists its major services available to higher education institutions, including consultancy, workshop, marketing, recruitment, representation, and' study in China.' The six services can be clustered into three categories: inculcation as in educating their clients about the Chinese market, representation as in
representing their clients in China, and brokerage as in managing and coordinating with local education brokers and university counterparts.
With inculcation, Dutch higher education institutions are educated with crash courses in the form of workshops to familiarize themselves with the Chinese markets' intricacies and status quo. Combined with tailor-made strategies they receive in consultations, Forward clients are equipped with the knowledge to attract students in China better.
25 Institutions can also opt for outsourcing their representation in China. As posted on Forward’s website, “Forward now makes it possible for you to have your own Representative in China. S)he will be located at our offices in Beijing, and work under the supervision of Forward management. You need not worry about office facilities, IT infrastructure, labour contracts or financial administration, as we will take care of these. Your China Rep will have direct access to the resources and networks of Forward and be able to build on the expertise and experience that is already available. (S)he will work for you on the basis of a mutually agreed annual activity plan with concrete targets and deliverables, and formally report to you quarterly”
It is quite indicative that the 'Chinese rep' mentioned above is outsourced personnel employed and assigned by Forward (since institutions do not need to "worry about labor contract or financial administration") though that person would work on behalf of institutions, runs all the social media accounts, and reports to institutions on a frequent basis. Moreover, since Forward already knows well about local brokers and maintains a network of them, it can then create, maintain, and manage a broker network for their clients. In this way, Forward essentially solves the nuances present in the conventional modes of marketization used by foreign higher education institutions in China. Whether it be setting one's offices/admission officers or collaborating with local brokers, the current modes require institutions to invest new resources in China and cultivate relationships from scratch with local stakeholders in the market, both of which take up a large quantity of resources, money, care, and constant
maintenance. With Forward, all institutions need is to outsource their representation in China to Forward and review the results.
As for applicants, current students and alumni of UvA, they enjoyed the services offered by Forward without realizing that these services are not actually provided by UvA, but rather by an outsourced company. They assume that there is a UvA China office
somewhere in China that attends to Chinese students' needs and questions and appraise UvA for its localization efforts, especially before coming to Amsterdam. But once starting their programs, they acknowledge that the only beneficial service UvA offers is the WeChat groups, something operated de facto by students and served as intra-student help groups. The real UvA lacks services for its international students, whether it be a student organization, cultural clubs, or adequate counseling services.
26 Discussion
Complementation, Localization and Transnationalization
In the traditional mode of marketization by overseas universities, current literature suggests direct contacts between universities and their foreign markets. They negotiate with
organizational actors like brokers or foreign counterparts, send admission officers across the globe, or set up permanent offices or hot desks to attract and recruit students (Cudmore, 2005; Maringe and Gibbs, 2009; Beech, 2018). However, after analyzing marketization strategies adopted by Dutch higher education, there is, first and foremost, an innovative alternative to the mode of 'lone wolves.' With Neso offices, higher education institutions can be represented collectively in foreign markets by a field office with government supports. Hence,
universities with less prestige or resources are still able to be presented and noticed through Neso China in the Chinese market. Neso China further serves as a bridge. Like an anchor based on the local market, it connects higher education institutions and local markets in a transnational manner. Dutch higher education institutions and their Chinese counterparts with their international offices are able to collaborate through Neso China transnationally.
Outsourced recruitment and outsourced promotion respond to and complement collective representation strategies signified by Neso China. As Neso China cannot attend to the marketization interests of all institutions, individual institutions need personalized marketization strategies to maximize recruitment in China. While HBO institutions predominantly opt for outsourced recruitment, WO or research universities settle on outsourced promotion. The departure of different strategies is a product of differences in prestige, reflected by global ranking, and hence institutions' appeals to potential applicants. For research universities, their priority is not placed on the number of applicants, but rather their quality. Outsourced promotion strives to reach a broader audience of qualified
applicants, to inform individuals of interest that these institutions are available and are up to applications. Outsourced recruitment, on the other hand, aims to ensure quantity and appeals to applicants who are otherwise not eligible to apply for WO institutions.
Both outsourcing strategies enable Dutch higher education institutions to utilize existing cultural and localized knowledge, infrastructures, networks and connections owned by their collaborating Chinese companies. The anchor and the main actor of transnationalism are placed upon the Chinese companies who take care of promotions and recruitments in the local market, using their existing resources. Conrad and Meyer-Ohle (2018) introduce a transnational recruitment regime where Japanese brokers would come to other Asian countries to recruit local graduates to work for Japanese employers in Japan. Contrary to
27 Dutch outsourcing strategies, the anchor and the main actor of transnationalism in this case are placed upon Japanese brokers who cross national-state borders from Japan to other Asian countries, forging connections and networks with local stakeholders.
Both Dutch institutions and Japanese companies rely on subcontractors to conduct recruitment on their behalf, a possible result of neo-liberalism since the gain of monetary expenditure on professional, skilled brokers is larger than the resources spent without brokers. Furthermore, while in the case of a Japanese recruitment regime, such transnationalization is observed explicitly in international recruitment fairs, there is a growing trend to transition to and emphasize the digital space over physical events for Dutch higher education promotions in China.
All three models of marketization are transnational in nature, as they incorporate various levels of stakeholders from both states involved and cross specific nation-state boundaries. Intersections exist among different information channels in such transnational processes, especially between official and commercialized channels. For instance, Bravo participated and potentially collaborated with Neso China in the same education fair. Neso China collaborates with big names of education brokers such as Qide and Jinjilie to promote Dutch higher education to their clients. Founders of Forward used to be Neso employees who might use networks accumulated during their Neso years to start Forward. In essence, the three means of marketization strategies do not contradict each other. Rather they complement and sometimes intertwine with each other, as their ultimate goal is to attract Chinese
applicants to pursue overseas education in the Netherlands instead of in other countries.
Applicants: More than One Way for Information
In response to Dutch higher education's transnational marketization efforts, applicants also developed transnational personal networks of their own. Such networks consist of strong and weak ties in different localities across nation-states, not limited to just China or the
Netherlands. They also incorporate different temporalities, stages of their overseas experiences. As a result, applicants are able to attain a broader gamut of experiences and opinions on living and studying in a specific city or country, counterbalancing and
complementing the effect of growing marketization efforts by institutions, organizations, and brokers.
Attaining the right information is a privilege, so is the possession of a “useful” social network. As Wittel (2001) argued, network sociality prioritizes the instrumentality and functionality of social relations. In this case, applicants utilize their social relations to collect
28 information necessary for their applications and study abroad experiences, to make the right decision for the right program, school and country to study, to have a smoother transition to an unfamiliar place and to prepare for everyday lives and chores, such as paying taxes or renting an apartment. They need to utilize all channels of information at their disposal to acquire information, but also to validate or debunk various information/misinformation, due to different interests as in the case of commercialized channels. Social networks are essential in applicants' pursuit of overseas education because they are an irreplaceable, complimentary channel of information to official, organizational sources such as university websites, to explain application requirements or visa documents from students' perspective in a language that applicants are familiar. They are also essential to invalidate misinformation or partial information infested in the digital space. They counterbalance information asymmetry between applicants and education brokers (or even universities), add post-application chores and preparations to complete the application picture, offer real-life problems and solutions faced by fellow international students, many of which are not addressed or unavailable on official sources of information.
Applicants actively seek to form or reinforce social relations with individuals both in real life and in the digital space, especially those who were residing abroad or had graduated from overseas universities at the time of my interviews. Such networks also include
individuals with whom applicants only knew or conversed online with minimal interactions. Such individuals include vloggers, Weibo or Tik Tok influencers, and altruistic netizens that use the same discussion forums as my applicants. Combined, they offer information that compliments official channels, something personal, specific, beyond the program or school itself, as well as a more holistic picture that contains both pros and cons about programs, schools, cities, or countries that applicants plan to apply or attend.
At the time of my fieldwork, Zhe just started his Master of Laws (LLM) program at UvA. The choice of his program at UvA is not random but a result of countless conversations with individuals from his personal network. Having graduated from a prestigious university specialized in law in China, Zhe's personal network is filled with law students who underwent applications to law programs globally. From them, Zhe recognized that there existed a
consensus among law students on the hierarchy of law institutions, with top US schools on the tip and regular Chinese law schools at the bottom. Zhe opted for the Netherlands, after consultations with alumni on qualities of programs and recognition of diplomas by potential employers in China, combined with financial factors. He then was able to list LLM programs in the Netherlands that fitted both his interests and practicality factors with the help of alumni
