It all started with a simple but powerful vision: “to make world-class education affordable for every student from everywhere”.
A group of forward-thinking professors from Canadian and Middle Eastern universities observed that the majority of international students were facing a very predictable set of challenges when pursuing degrees abroad. In fact, it was pretty much what they had experienced years ago, when they themselves were international students.
The vast majority of international students come from developing countries and experience very similar challenges:
- Language barriers
- High costs of world-class education
- Sudden cultural shock in both academic and social settings
- Difficulty in adapting to the new education system
- Time gaps in education due to visa processing delays
IEP was created to address some of these challenges while making contributions towards its ultimate vision. For maximum impact, IEP co-founders decided to focus on delivering pre-arrival preparation programs that help put students on a path to success. Furthermore, IEP chose to initially focus on North American education opportunities.
Leveraging technology advancements, IEP offers a blended education system that facilitates a highly effective learning experience and fosters collaboration between the main stakeholders, namely:
- North American [“destination”] universities/colleges
- Home country [“origin”] universities/colleges
- International agents
- IEP platform accessible all around the world
IEP aims to help unlock the full potential of the combined student-centric value propositions from all stakeholders, for mutual benefit.
Origin universities provide teaching assistants and use of facilities, while curriculum, syllabus and professors are vetted by destination universities. This model tremendously benefits the students, who are able to start their selected degree program in their home country and gradually build a robust understanding of the North American education system while improving their language and social skills, as well as addressing any gaps they might have in their education.
Origin universities can gain significant benefits as a result of associating themselves with multiple destination universities through IEP, via co-branding agreements. This results in the creation of an additional revenue stream through maximizing the utilization of their facilities and teaching assistant availability.
Destination universities can also realize compelling benefits as a result of participating in this collaboration:
- Access to a reliable and sustainable intake of better prepared international students, free of marketing costs and commissions
- Significantly more control over quality assurance processes when compared to traditional articulation programs
- Higher student retention, as a direct result of IEP’s business model
- Better ability to ensure international student diversity due to IEP’s global reach
- Lower marketing costs due to leveraging co-branding opportunities and IEP’s digital marketing capabilities
Agents can get instant access to an entirely new market unlocked by IEP. Creative co-branding, alongside a facilitated university admission process, are just some of the advantages that IEP brings to the table. Agents also enjoy an incentivized model regarding commissions. All in all, IEP nurtures long-term and mutually rewarding collaboration agreements with its partner agents.
As stated, IEP’s business model revolves around the student. We channel everyone’s efforts towards removing the barriers most international students encounter.
In summary, it is our goal to provide fair opportunities to the international students and help universities get access to more diversified, pre-screened and qualified international students. We make every effort to achieve our purpose of delivering affordable world-class education.