UCC markets aggressively abroad looking for non-EU students who will pay full fees, and they now account for some 10 per cent of students. Anne Byrne reports

For a Dublin person, attending college in Cork may seem like a big deal: different accents, different clubs and pubs, new friends, accommodation worries and costs, and the Lee instead of the Liffey.

UCC, however, is showcasing its efforts far beyond the nation's capital.

Louise Tobin, international education officer, has just returned from a trip to Shanghai, Suzhuo, Bejing and Qingdao. "We intend to concentrate on Shanghai," she says blithely, talking of China's one-child family policy, its tight family units and the consequent need for pastoral support for Chinese students.

Tobin reports a huge interest by the Chinese in information technology, engineering and business programmes, but little interest in medicine.

UCC, like other Irish universities, markets aggressively abroad looking for non-EU students who will pay full fees. A read through the report of the activities of the work of the International Education Office, with its six-member team, is something of an eye-opener. There are reports of work done by various recruitment agencies as well as direct marketing. The recruitment agencies take 15 per cent of the fees. This is big business.

International students (including both full degree and visiting students) now account for more than 10 per cent of the overall student population at UCC.

To those who might say that socio-economically disadvantaged students are underrepresented in third level while sought-after places go to international students, UCC vice-president Professor Aidan Moran counters that it is not an either/or situation. The college also has a very active access programme, with reserved places for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, he says.

While he acknowledges the financial benefits accruing from the 1,235 international students, from 63 countries, enrolled in 2000-2001, he says there are also benefits to the college in terms of having an "international campus. The American students who come here for their Junior Year Abroad (JYA) are very active participants in debate at undergraduate level. The lecturers enjoy having a mixture of students. There are also new clubs and societies on campus such as the Muslim Society and the Asian Students' Society." UCC has been particularly successful in recruiting JYA students. Some 10 years ago, UCC enrolled 138 JYA students. Last year's 450 students contributed more than €1.7 million to the college. JYA students spend a full academic year or a semester at UCC, are taught and examined on the same basis as full-time students and get academic credit for their stay.

UCC has developed a series of Early Start programmes that allow students to come on campus a month earlier than the main student body. This has advantages in terms of acclimatisation as well as finding accommodation.

The four Early Start programmes (not to be confused with the pre-school initiative of the same name) are well-designed offerings that include archaeology, literature, history and modern Ireland and Irish ecosystems.

These programmes take visiting students on a variety of field trips. For instance, the ecosystems brochure outlines a visit to the Gearagh, one of the "most extensive alluvial soil forests in Western Europe", located in the middle reaches of the River Lee.

Outlining its JYA promotional campaign, the international education office notes: "In a highly competitive market, no effort is spared to ensure that existing partnerships are maintained and that all new opportunities are grasped." Promotion includes advertisements in US study-

abroad publications, extensive mailshots to US institutions, visits to UCC by representatives of US colleges, campus visits to the US and attendance at an annual study-abroad conference.

Louise Tobin says other Irish colleges have extensively targeted the north-east coast of the US so UCC is looking to more obscure geographical locations. "Iowa is our latest acquisition. The three public colleges looked at all of the Irish universities and opted for UCC." It is expected that up to 80 students from these colleges will come to UCC next year.

An ambitious target has been set, with the aim to double the JYA revenues for the period up to 2005-06. This would mean the college would make €2.45 million in that year.

While UCC has been steadily increasing its cohort of JYA students, there was a wobble last year. Following September 11th, some US students did not come to Ireland in the spring as planned. Tobin says this was mainly due to parental fears and that many of these students will come in September.

Moran says September 11th provided a lesson in dealing with a multi-cultural student body, as the pastoral service had to deal with the fears and worries of Muslim students as well as US students.

The rate of exchange in the other direction is limited, with a few students benefiting from scholarships. The US undergraduate programme tends to be broad-based, allowing students to get full credit for their year abroad.

For Irish students, finding a US programme that is sufficiently specific to their course can be difficult, so a year in the US is an unattractive proposition - it usually means adding a further year to your degree.

International education is more readily available to Irish third-level students in the form of SOCRATES, an EU-funded programme. In UCC, incoming students outnumbered outgoing by almost two to one (154 outgoing in 2000/2002; 289 incoming students). UCC teaches four European languages: French, German, Italian and Spanish.

New initiatives in Europe include recruitment in Norway, where UCC has engaged the services of the International Education Centre, based in Oslo, to act as a recruitment agency. UCD and TCD have also entered into a similar agreement with the IEC. Norway is seen as a promising market for the recruitment of fee-paying students for both full degree and semester programmes.

The Far East is the newest market, with Enterprise Ireland organising the recent Chinese visit, which included representatives of many of the Irish colleges. Moran is undeterred by the fact that awareness of Ireland in the Far East may be limited to a vague knowledge that Enya and the Corrs hail from the Emerald Isle. If his optimism is justified, the yen may soon be a major contributor to the college coffers.