News
Survey of Universities
In the 2009 survey of the world's best universities, Oxford
and Cambridge were the only two universities outside the USA to be placed in the top 10 (Cambridge
was ranked fourth - down from second a couple of years ago - and Oxford tenth). Only three
universities outside the USA were in the top twenty (the other one was Tokyo University, at 20th place).
The top-ranked university
in continental Europe was ETH Zürich, which placed 23rd.
Of course, there is considerable arbitrariness in ranking universities, and by choosing
slightly different criteria, or weighting the chosen criteria differently, one could
arrive at a different ranking order. The criteria used in this survey favour
universities which are strong in research in the sciences and mathematics. More balanced
criteria might well result, for example, in a higher ranking of the University of Oxford, and a lower
ranking of MIT and the California Institute of Technology.
There are several surveys which try to rank universities. However, this particular survey is interesting because
of its impartiality and academic respectability (it was done by the
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, where
evaluation of universities is a research focus). An index of its objectivity is that Shanghai
Jiao Tong University ranks
itself in equal 301st place.
The reason American universities do so well is simply that they have more money,
which enables them to attract good academics and support staff, and to build
better facilities. The top-ranked university in the survey was Harvard,
which has a total endowment of about $35 billion1. Oxford and Cambridge each
have endowments equivalent to about $5.5 billion. British universities used to
be mainly funded by government (i.e. the taxpayers); such funding has decreased
greatly and is continuing to decrease.
Oxford and Cambridge increasingly depend on their own financial resources -
which come mainly from donations and legacies from alumni.
The result may seem good to recent graduates, but similar surveys done in
the 1970s always put Oxford and Cambridge at the very top. Our Universities are going through difficult
times.
1Here, "billion" is used in the sense 109, which used to be an American usage but which seems to be becoming universal. Suggest an alternative if you object.
Note: There may be additional news items on the members-only news page. Login to see them.
|