Global university rankings have become a significant feature of international higher education and are commonly interpreted as an indicator of success in the global economy. They came to prominence in 2003 with the publication of the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU). Today, there are ten global rankings of varying degrees of popularity, reliability, and trustworthiness. National rankings have existed since the early 19th century, primarily in the United States, but they now exist in many countries around the world. It is the ability of global rankings to provide a simple, easily understood method by which to compare higher education internationally that has made them a phenomenon. Thus, rankings are viewed as a measure of “world-class excellence.” The performance and quality of higher education is a vital sign of a country’s capacity to participate successfully in the global economy. This follows from studies that continue to highlight strong correlations between investment in education and research and economic growth. While this has highlighted the importance of higher education in creating competitive advantage, it has also brought increased public scrutiny to how higher education is governed and managed, and about value-for-money. This is now the subject of policy debate and public discourse at both the national and the supranational levels. Rankings are also a response to growing pressure from students and parents for more consumer information. As students look for the “best” universities and colleges, rankings appear to provide information about educational quality and, correspondingly, about career prospects. Because rankings are seen as independent of the higher education sector and individual institutions, they are perceived as a more reliable source of information for employers, policymakers, and the public. But rankings are also controversial. Studies raise many questions about their methodology and choice of indicators, which are widely seen as promoting a narrow definition of excellence, and thus as favoring a small subset of the world’s 18,000 higher education institutions. Nonetheless, international research shows that the influence of global rankings on the choices and decisions taken by governments, higher education institutions, students, employers, and others continues to grow. Today’s debates have moved beyond discussing the advantages and disadvantages of global rankings to examining their impact and influence, alternative accountability and transparency instruments, and what global rankings are telling us about the changing shape or the geopolitics of higher education internationally. For further information on a related topic, see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Education article “Value of Higher Education for Students and Other Stakeholders.”
What Counts as World Class? Global University Rankings and Shifts in Institutional Strategies
