ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the perspectives of Italian higher education institutions (HEIs) on agent use as part of their international student recruitment efforts. Limited information is available on this topic hitherto. This research aims to understand to what extent Italian institutions work with agents and their level of satisfaction with these relationships. A survey that was sent out to Italian HEIs to investigate their use of agents found that 56.7% of respondents work with agents. HEIs working with agents were largely satisfied with their service, though the respondents also declared negative issues regarding, above all, the number of recruited students and the respective quality of these recruits. Others reported frustration in signing an agreement after the first contact, difficulties in reaching out to agents, and visa or other difficulties caused by agents with Italian embassies. Also, HEIs that did not use agents stated their preference for other recruitment instruments, that their institutional leadership did not wish to work with agents, or they did not do any active marketing to recruit international students.
