Despite the dominance of the US and UK at the top of the table, subject rankings show that not all the best engineering happens at top institutions
by Martin Ince, a member of the QS Advisory Board
Engineering and information technology, the first subjects to be analysed in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, are popular with students, who appreciate the good careers they can lead to. Politicians, too, appreciate their importance. They supply the skilled people needed by manufacturing, which despite the growing importance of service industries remains a key source of prosperity and of well-paid jobs in export industries.
These five tables reveal that ambitious, internationally-mobile students of these subjects are likely to find themselves boarding a flight for the United States. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is top on all five measures. As well as MIT, we see the big names of the US East and West coasts, including Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech and Harvard, in prominent positions.
But a detailed look at the tables shows that in practice, student choice is not so clear-cut. In chemical engineering, 25 of the universities in our top 50 are in the US, but the other 25 are not. For civil engineering, only 15 are in the US. Even for computing, 29 of the top 50 are not in the nation that gave us IBM, Google, Microsoft and Apple. For electrical engineering, 30 of the top 50 are outside the US, and for mechanical engineering, 27.
So these tables point towards universities that might provide high-quality engineering training for less eye-watering sums than study at MIT and its US rivals involves.
And whilst MIT is regarded by the academics in our survey as top in all five of these subjects, theirs is only one view. Employers see Cambridge – the one in the UK – as the world’s best place to recruit computer graduates. In chemical and civil engineering, they prefer both Oxford and Cambridge in the UK to MIT. For mechanical and electrical engineers, they prefer Harvard.
HE News Briefs 19.4.11
by Abby Chau
IN THIS EDITION
- GLOBAL: Peter Thiel predicts the next bubble will be higher education
- UK: Institutions are looking to international students in order to plug the gap in their budgets
- DENMARK: Universities are losing more mobile students from the EU
- COLOMBIA: Protests erupt because of government’s new proposals to reform higher education
- RUSSIA: New law eases policy on international faculty
A closer look at the QS Subject Rankings for Chemical Engineering
By Danny Byrne
MIT tops the inaugural QS World University Rankings® for Chemical Engineering, with Cambridge, UC Berkeley, Oxford and Stanford joining it in the top five. California’s status as a research hub was underlined with four of the state’s universities in the top ten (Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA and Caltech), while Imperial College London joined Oxbridge to make three UK universities in the top ten.
While the universities of the sunshine state flex their collective muscle, it is MIT that underlines its reputation as the undisputed heavyweight champion in engineering, completing a clean sweep of all four engineering fields assessed in the QS World University Rankings® by Subject. The university’s chemical engineering faculty is legendary – more than 10% of chemical engineering teachers in the US earned their degree from MIT, and the faculty accounts for over 20% of the elected members of the US National Academy of Engineering.
UC Berkeley puts in an impressive third-place performance, with particular strength in academic reputation, for which it ranks second. The university’s chemical engineering faculty – recently renamed the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering – has been involved in important research in fields such as molecular thermodynamics, polymer processing, and catalysis and reaction engineering. North of the border, Toronto (14) and McGill (15) make the top 20, with a total of ten of Canada’s universities featuring in the top 200.
HE News Brief 12.4.11
by Abby Chau
IN THIS EDITION
- AUSTRALIA: Leadership at top institutions are targeting indigenous students’ leadership and participation rates
- SOUTH KOREA: Series of suicides on the KAIST campus has forced a change in student scholarship policies
- POLAND: Private and public institutions jostle for students and supremacy
- KENYA: Brain drain affecting professors and students
- GLOBAL: New QS Subject Rankings – Engineering & Technology has recently been released
Identifying excellence and diversity in international education: rankings and beyond
On 18th May 2011, QS will be running a rankings and evaluation symposium, hosted by École Normale Supérieure-Paris (ENS).
Join high-profile speakers as they share valuable insight and debate issues crucial to universities in their quest for excellence and international recognition. Speakers include:
- Jan Sadlak, IREG Observatory,
- Richard Yelland, OECD
- Monique Canto-Sperber, ENS
- Paul Thurman, Columbia University
- Yasushi Adachi, Elsevier BV
- Ben Sowter, QS Quacquarelli Symonds
- Kevin Downing, City University of Hong Kong
and more…
Results of the 2011 QS World University Rankings® by Subject will also be announced, revealing the top ranked higher education institutes in natural sciences disciplines including: Earth & Marine Sciences, Mathematics, Environmental Sciences, Metallurgy & Materials, Physics & Astronomy and Chemistry.
The event is free for university staff. Click here for more information and to register.
HE News Brief 29.3.11
by Abby Chau
IN THIS EDITION
- UNITED KINGDOM: British Government backtracks on proposed policies to curtail immigration
- CHINA: Peking University introduces controversial student screening
- AUSTRALIA: Australian business leaders call for dergulation of student fees
- UNITED STATES: US News & World Report produce MBA ranking based on student yield
- UNITED KINGDOM: University of Wales under review by Quality Assurance Agency
HE News Brief 7.3.11
by Abby Chau
- Statistics recently released by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada shows that a growing amount of young people are now entering into higher education. 32,000 more students are enrolled in 2010 which represents a 3.7% increase from 2009. Ontario universities has seen a 49% increase in applications since 2000. Some are warning that the increase in students will be a drain on government funds as numbers continue to expand.
Full Story: Macleans
- Sir Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics since 2003, resigned recently over allegations of acceptance of a £1.5 million donation from a charity foundation run by one of the sons of the controversial and eccentric Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Wikileaks cables show that LSE may not be the only institution connected to the Libyan government and this is just the beginning of a series of revelations concerning universities’ role in legitimizing the government. LSE, for its part, said that it would donate the funds to promote higher education in North Africa.
Full Story: Chronicle of Higher Education
- Academic and deputy director of research at Kent Business School Dennis Tourish recently laid claim that journal lists are detrimental to innovative research, particularly pointing out that the Q index used by some institutions such as the University of Queensland is flawed. The Q index measures research income, higher degree completions, research publication, and advisory loads, among others. Tourish says that the emphasis on journal lists is encouraging conformity and academic malaise. Queensland’s deputy vice-chancellor has reputed the claims saying that the Q index is a good tool to assess academic quality but other factors are taken into account such as teaching loads and performance.
Full Story: The Australian
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Oxbridge academics react to proposed UK funding cuts
by Danny Byrne
The plot thickens.
All over the news in the UK today is the story of 681 Oxbridge academics coming togethether to sign a “strongly worded” letter demanding a public enquiry into the proposed changes to fees and funding set forth in the UK.
The full text of the letter, along with the names of all the signatories, is available on The Independent website here: www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letter-universities-left-to-fly-blind-2229347.html
Perhaps amongst the most meaningful passages is the following: “We note with dismay and alarm that universities are being forced to take major decisions, with unknown consequences, at a breakneck speed. We are being asked to “fly blind” over matters of the utmost importance in respect of our ability to continue to deliver world-class education and research.”
Certainly this seems to be a sharp contrast to the more direct action taken by students some months ago but still the coverage (rather than the letter itself) finds it difficult to focus on anything other than the fee hikes. Cuts in funding for the sector in the UK seem to have slipped by with scarcely a mention – although the Newsnight feature on the topic did include one Oxford academic mention concerns regarding cuts to teaching funding in the humanities. What happens when students paying these increased fees find that they cannot expect any further services for their money and that, in many cases, they may see cuts in services where the fee increases do not fully account for funding cuts? One of the most interesting trends to monitor will be the influence any of this has on migration of students to and from the UK. 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.
Russia’s Education Reform
by Ina Chiriliuc
Almost two years after Russia fully introduced its Unified State Exam (later referred to as EGE –“Ediny Gosudarstvenny Ekzamen”), students, parents and teachers are still dismayed by the change. The exam is similar to the American SAT-s and is a mandatory requirement for acceptance into higher education institutions. At the polar opposite of the oral exams and essays that were the basis of the Soviet testing system, the new multiple choice testing is supposed to be “directed against corruption and should be much more transparent”, according to president Medvedev, a strong supporter of the EGE.
Introducing the EGE is part of Russia’s commitments as a member of the Council of Europe, under the Bologna Convention on Higher Education. Besides its strategic role, this education reform is expected to introduce an unbiased, consistent and measurable method of evaluating students before they enter universities.
The intentions behind EGE are apparently the best, but people are still protesting; the main subjective reason being that it completely substitutes the once glorious Soviet education system, which was very focused on science and produced bright minds. Unfortunately the reality is that the former Soviet system has been lagging behind the rest of the world for quite some time and Russia has been losing its best high-school graduates in favour of Germany, US and UK. A reform was thus necessary. A more believable reason to reject the new EGE is that it has caused even more corruption, particularly in schools. Teachers were caught taking the exams in place of students for 40000 rubles. Continue Reading
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