Assessing global higher education
by John O’Leary, a member of the QS Academic Advisory board
How many different ways are there to assess global higher education? The QS subject rankings, the first of which will appear on April 5, represent one new way, giving students an international guide to quality in individual subjects for the first time.
The first five subjects, rated by academic and employer opinion as well as by citations, will cover computer science and four branches of engineering. Rankings in another 27 subjects will appear by the end of May.
The new rankings will be the first to give students an idea of employers’ views of the leading universities in individual subjects – something that is particularly important in disciplines such as engineering, where graduates tend to go into jobs directly related to their course. As a result, the big international employers often have a more sophisticated view of the qualities of graduates from different universities than those who recruit from the full range of subjects.
As the QS rankings of whole universities have shown, there can be subtle differences in the views of employers and academics on which are the leading universities. To have this knowledge at subject level will be an important addition to the information used by students in choosing universities across the world.
Whether they will be as enthusiastic about some of the other rankings that have come out recently is more doubtful. Times Higher Education, for example, having previously complained that the 40 per cent reputational element in the QS rankings was too high, published a ranking that was 100 per cent reputation and entirely derived from its last set of tables.
More innovative, but still of questionable value to students was the British Council’s Global Gauge, which purported to judge which countries were the most international in the higher education sphere. Perhaps surprisingly, Germany came out ahead of Australia in second place, the UK (third) and the USA (sixth). China and Malaysia were fourth and fifth respectively. Continue Reading
Going Global 2011: Can university rankings play a useful role?
by Danny Byrne, Editor of Topuniversities.com
“We should not, as academic institutions, abandon academic rigour, seduced by the spotlight of international rankings.” So argued Malcolm Grant, Vice Chancellor of University College London, at the Going Global Conference in Hong Kong earlier this month. Most intelligent commentators recognise that university rankings only capture certain aspects of institutional performance. But is that sufficient cause to write them off altogether?
Grant was taking part in a session entitled International Rankings: Where Do You Stand?, the aim of which was to establish whether or not university rankings actually provide any useful information. Or, in the terms chosen by the organisers, “Are rankings capable of playing a helpful role in enhancing communications and understanding to stakeholders in today’s global market for higher education?”
The objections to rankings voiced by Grant were part conceptual, part practical. He listed eight major ‘fracture points’ that undermine the validity of established rankings methodologies. Grant drew attention to the proxies rankings are forced to employ in the absence of direct data on some areas of university life, and the problematic nature of applying weightings to indicators.
“How do we weight data in a manner which is not only transparent, but which is intellectually compelling?” Grant asked. “I believe that this remains the biggest single drawback of the rankings that we have at the moment.” However, Grant, whose own university UCL recently announced plans to charge annual tuition fees of £9,000 from 2012, did not identify an alternative means by which students might compare it with other institutions around the world.
GLOBAL: THE reputational rankings – a helpful tool?
* Danny Byrne is the editor of www.topuniversities.com and of the QS Top Grad School Guide.
Anybody who has been following the debate surrounding world university rankings in the last year or so will have raised an eyebrow at the recent publication by Times Higher Education of a ranking based entirely upon academic assessment of institutional reputation. This ranking was an attention-grabbing stunt. But how much new light does it really shed on the world’s top universities?
Before the launch of its own rankings last year, THE criticised QS’s use of reputation surveys, which it said were “subjective”. THE’s explanation for producing its own new ranking, rather than continuing to rely on the established QS methodology, was specifically to focus on ‘objective’ university data rather than academic opinions.
Later, on 7 January 2010, it announced that it was planning to use an academic survey with a target size of 25,000 respondents within its rankings. Now it has published a completely academic survey with just over 13,000 participants.
So why has THE decided to launch a world ranking based entirely on institutional reputation? Is it for the benefit of institutions like Moscow State University, which did not appear in THE’s original top 200 but now appears 33rd in the world?
The data on which the new reputational ranking is based has been available for six months and comprised 34.5% of the world university rankings published by THE in September 2010.
But this is the first time the magazine has allowed anyone to view this data in isolation. Allowing users to access the data six months ago may have attracted less attention, but it would perhaps have been less confusing for prospective students.
The order of the universities in the reputational rankings differs from the THE’s overall ranking. But no new insights have been offered and nothing has changed. This plays into the hands of those who are sceptical about university rankings. Continue Reading
Texas Budget Shortfall Could Mean Steep Cuts into HE Funding
This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who particularly enjoys writing about online universities. Questions and comments can be sent to: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.
Throughout the recession, for the past several years, some states, like California, were labeled big losers, while other states, namely Texas, were revered as models of conservative fiscal policy. Led by long-standing Governor Rick Perry, Texas fared much better throughout the economic recession, although critics contest that the state’s deficit was essentially hidden under political rhetoric that decried stimulus money with the right hand, while grabbing tons of federal funds with the left. As Texas draws up its budget in April, currently projecting a $27 billion dollar deficit, experts believe that the chickens, as it were, are coming home to roost. And that could mean bad news for state higher education funding in particular.
The University of Texas at Austin, the state’s leading institution of public higher education, as well as a nationally renowned research institution, may face $100 million dollars in cuts in 2012-13 in the state’s biennial budget. UT President Bill Powers cited this estimate, basing figures made by the House and the Senate. Since 2009, UT cut over $14 million dollars from its budget, and Powers noted that cuts of this scale in the next state budget would have a “significant and negative impact on teaching and research” at the school.
The University of Houston, a higher education system that services one of the biggest cities in the United States, with over 60,000 students, is expecting similar cuts into its budget, estimated at $81 million dollars, according to a Houston Chronicle article. UH Chancellor Renu Khator said the school may be forced to hike tuition fees if budget cuts go through. The article noted that Khator told the Senate in recent testimony that the budget cuts “would be the equivalent of losing 9,300 students, offering 1,220 fewer courses and losing between 300 and 400 faculty members.” The Daily Cougar, a UH student publication, noted that student financial aid is likewise at high risk.
