Author: The Economist

Notes: Up to date critical general interest article from The Economist on rankings with an emphasis on the ARWU/Shanghai ranking including some history and background as well as a discussion of the issues that rankings are causing.

Snippet: They favour research over teaching and the sciences over the arts[…] EARLIER this month Peking University played host to perhaps the grandest global gathering ever of the higher-education business. Senior figures from the world’s most famous universities—Harvard and Yale, Oxford and Cambridge among them—enjoyed or endured a two-hour opening ceremony followed by a packed programme of mandatory cultural events interspersed with speeches lauding “Xi Jinping thought”. The party was thrown to celebrate Peking University’s 120th birthday—and, less explicitly, China’s success in a race that started 20 years ago.

The Economist. 2018. “How Global University Rankings Are Changing Higher Education,” May 19, 2018. https://www.economist.com/international/2018/05/19/how-global-university-rankings-are-changing-higher-education.