By Nolan Cowzer, Co‑founder & Chief Marketing Officer, GERSA

International student mobility has exploded in a single generation. From a few hundred thousand learners crossing borders in the late 1980s, the figure now stands at 6.4 million and could plausibly double again by 2030. Yet while demand for global study has soared, the systems that hold it together—visa regimes, agent networks, safeguarding checks—were never designed for this scale. The result is an ecosystem under pressure: universities wrestling with rising compliance costs, ethical agents fighting to distinguish themselves from bad actors, and students left unsure whom to trust.

This is exactly the moment the Global Education Recruitment Standards Authority (GERSA) was created for. In our inaugural podcast I sat down with co‑founder Nick Golding and operations lead Birgit Hirst to unpack the forces reshaping recruitment and to explain why a single, not‑for‑profit standards body can convert today’s risk into tomorrow’s shared opportunity. Here’s that conversation distilled into a 1 500‑word read.

An inflection point we can’t ignore

In four decades of international admissions work Nick has seen the conversation shift from “Do we even want foreign students?” to “How do we safely manage a pipeline that now supplies up to 30 % of a university’s income?” Recruitment agencies play a decisive role—well over half of globally mobile students engage an agent at some stage—but regulation has struggled to keep pace. Among the vulnerabilities now making headlines:

  • Commission gaming (double‑dipping or channel stuffing)
  • Visa fraud and document falsification
  • Abuse of student‑loan systems and tuition payment scams
  • Modern slavery and human‑trafficking routes masquerading as study pathways

The fallout isn’t abstract. Last year, multiple Indian students returned from Canada in body‑bags after being misled about work entitlements; in the UK, bad debt linked to absconding or non‑genuine students is estimated at US $500 million annually. When tragedies like these dominate the news‑cycle, international students become easy fodder for anti‑migration politics—and the entire higher‑education project suffers.

The hidden cost of fragmented compliance

Well‑intentioned frameworks do exist. In Australia, for example, the Agent Quality Framework (AQF) clarifies what “good” looks like. Yet every university still has to demonstrate due diligence on every agent, every year. Universities UK calculated that staff here spend five to six working days per agent each year on duplicated checks. If your institution manages a network of 100 agencies, that is 550 person‑days—while your peer down the road repeats the same paperwork.

Agencies endure the mirror image: a large operator might supply identical incorporation certificates, bank details and CPD records to 200+ providers, fielding minor variations of the same questionnaire each time. The opportunity cost is staggering and ultimately pushes resources away from where they matter—student support and academic innovation.

Enter GERSA: one mission, global remit

GERSA exists to remove that duplication, to raise the floor on professional practice, and to do so as a neutral, non‑profit authority with no stake in commercial transactions between agents and providers. Our founding team has lived the pain from every angle:

  • Nick Golding convened the partnership after three decades bridging UK institutions with overseas markets.
  • Birgit Hirst ran international admissions systems, pathway operations and global payment platforms, witnessing first‑hand the compliance burden on both sides.
  • I contribute the marketing lens—how we articulate the value of standards to sector and society alike.

Together we are building three pillars:

  1. A Common Due‑Diligence Vault – one secure submission of core documents, company registrations and fit‑and‑proper checks, visible to all subscribing universities.
  2. Real‑Time Incident Reporting & Analytics – a confidential channel for providers to flag visa refusals, fraudulent documents or welfare concerns, feeding anonymised trend data back to the sector.
  3. A Public Trust‑Mark – a student‑facing seal confirming an agent has passed independent audit and continuous monitoring, akin to a Trustpilot rating but grounded in regulatory evidence.

Why now—and why it works economically

If we succeed, the sector reclaims two forms of value:

  • Bad‑debt savings – Nick’s conservative model shows that curbing fraud could recover US $100 million every year.
  • Efficiency dividends – centralising due diligence can eliminate a similar sum in duplicated staff hours. Over a decade that is US $2 billion re‑invested into teaching, research and student experience.

Crucially, those savings come while quality rises. Universities spend less time chasing incorporation papers and more time nurturing high‑potential markets. Ethical agents gain a stage on which to shine, differentiating themselves from opportunistic players who cut corners.

What’s in it for universities?

  1. Reduced risk – Independent audits and live‑incident data catch problems early, protecting sponsor licences and brand reputation.
  2. Lower cost – Shared compliance infrastructure replaces duplicated form‑filling with a subscription that pays for itself in freed staff time.
  3. Data‑driven insight – Benchmark dashboards reveal visa success rates, payment timeliness and completion outcomes by market and agency.
  4. Policy head‑room – When the Home Office (or IRCC, DHS, etc.) sees universities collaborating on robust standards, the political temperature around migration cools.

What’s in it for ethical agents?

  1. Competitive edge – A GERSA seal signals rigour, lifting trust with students and partner institutions instantly.
  2. Single upload, global reach – Core compliance pack lodged once, not 200 times.
  3. Professional community – Access to peer learning on new fraud vectors, AI‑based document checks, and fast‑changing sanctions regimes.

Protecting the most important stakeholder: the student

Our podcast underscores a simple truth: behind every compliance breach is a human cost. Birgit recalls her own transformative stint as an international student and wants the same life‑changing opportunity protected for her children’s generation. A well‑governed recruitment chain ensures that:

  • Promises match reality – course claims, work‑rights and scholarship offers are verified, clear and honest.
  • Safeguarding is active, not passive – early‑warning signals of welfare risk pass seamlessly from agent to provider.
  • Pathways stay open – source countries avoid blanket bans because rogue behaviour is isolated, not generalised.

Building on—not ripping up—existing frameworks

We sometimes hear: “But my country already has an agent code.” Good. GERSA’s job isn’t to replace the AQF or any national standard; it is to complement and operationalise them at scale. Think of us as the connective tissue that lets a UK university learn instantly from an Australian incident, or an Indian agency demonstrate compliance to both sectors through one audit.

Other industries have walked this path. The World Gold Council created the Responsible Gold Mining Principles so that ethical miners could distance themselves from conflict‑gold. Aviation’s IATA safety audits let airlines share one accreditation with regulators worldwide. International education now needs its own cross‑border assurance engine—and that’s GERSA.

What happens next?

  1. Beta audits (Summer 2025) – We are onboarding a first cohort of agencies and universities to road‑test the due‑diligence vault.
  2. Standards Working Group – Sector leaders across the UK, Canada, Australia and the US will refine audit criteria and reporting taxonomies.
  3. Student‑facing launch (Q4 2025) – The trust‑mark goes live with an online directory where students can verify agent status in seconds.

Join the conversation

We closed our recording with a challenge: Imagine a world where international students are no longer weaponised in migration debates because the sector has proof of its own integrity. Lofty? Perhaps. But every provider, agency, policymaker and—most importantly—student benefits if we get there.

If you would like to help shape the standard, enrol in a pilot audit or simply keep informed:

  • Subscribe to the GERSA Podcast on Apple, Spotify or Google.
  • Download the toolkit preview at gersa.org/toolkit.
  • Register for our July webinar on cutting compliance duplication.

Together we can turn today’s compliance pain into a platform for progress—for universities, for ethical agents and, above all, for the millions of learners whose futures start with a single application form.

— Nolan