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UK universities slide down global rankings

21 points by krigath 3y ago

Pete-Codes 3y ago
Considering how much more funding US universities have, this is inevitable. Also, most people here don't fund endowments or really give back to their universities.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
krigath 3y ago
https://archive.is/imsbv https://archive.is/imsbv
mensetmanusman 3y ago
Interesting that it mentions China rising in the same breath. I'm not sure if I should be surprised there isn't a facet of the rating like: "percent chance you will be disappeared for holding up a blank sheet of paper" or "how excited other countries children are to attend." Maybe the ranking just cares about how much money you are pouring into STEM research.
keiferski 3y ago
I recently spent about a month total in Cambridge and Oxford, just as a remote worker / tourist. Having previously visited Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton, etc. it was my impression that American universities have an order of magnitude more resources than UK ones. Even an average state school campus in the US appears larger and better funded. Of course, Oxford and Cambridge have a centuries-old historical legacy (and are both absolutely worth visiting, although I much preferred Cambridge) but they seemed more dependent on that traditional reputation. So if the “brand” of the UK goes down, it will have a direct effect on the top universities in a way that I don’t think would happen in the US.
- lm28469 3y ago
  US campuses are mini cities with large amount of money spent on a lot of useless things Europe campuses are buildings with just a bit more than the bare minimum you need to do the job
- was_a_dev 3y ago
  From a UK perspective, the US "throws money" at everything, both culturally and because you are a larger economy. Education, sports, healthcare, industry, space, science to name a few. The UK also has an opposing culture, we don't invest in the long term in infrastructure or people. Even in your case, you visited the two richest universities (by a long margin) in the UK.
  - okeuro49 3y ago
    There's long term investment in London, but the North never recovered after losing its industry. Numerous promises such as "northern powerhouse" have failed to materialise.
    - was_a_dev 3y ago
      I think it would be safe to call London an outlier for the UK, for the reason of how much investment is directed there
    - kranke155 3y ago
      The north didn’t “lose” its industry, im afraid. It was deliberately destroyed as a matter of policy. Deindustrialisation is terrible.
    - thebruce87m 3y ago
      For people outside the UK - English people refer to the north of England as “the North”, even when talking in the context of the UK.
  - eli_gottlieb 3y ago
    > The UK also has an opposing culture, we don't invest in the long term in infrastructure or people. That's not really so different from the United States!
dave4420 3y ago
The headline makes it seem like a UK thing, but > Institutions in Europe and the US also fell back, and the report’s authors said the UK’s rankings had held up better than French, German, Japanese and American universities. it feels more like a West vs the Rest (or even a Rest vs China) thing.
- was_a_dev 3y ago
  Part of this seems inevitable, with the West providing world-class education to Chinese students for decades, which can them be imported back into China Add in the funding China provides to universities, and you would be disheartened if Chinese universities didn't improve
tyingq 3y ago
In the top 50 of the referenced global rankings[1], there are 5 non-western universities. The highest one ranked at 13 (Japan), then 27 (Japan), then 31 (South Korea), and finally 44 and 49 (China). [1] https://cwur.org/2023.php https://cwur.org/2023.php
- yorwba 3y ago
  You forgot the University of Tokyo, ranked 13.
  - tyingq 3y ago
    Ah, thanks! Edited.
SilverBirch 3y ago
55 dropped, 6 stayed the same and 32 improved. Or to put it another way, this really isn't news. Then when you hear 96% of Chinese universities improved... this has nothing to do with the UK at all! Of course if one massive country manages to improve practically all their universities' rankings in 1 year, everyone else in the league table will be going down. The question is what happened? Did the universities actually just all suddenly improve in 1 year? I doubt it. This is almost certainly the rankings changing the way they regard Chinese universities. When I was at Uni we had exactly this game happen. I was at a uni where our department was ranked highest in the country, then the student survey went around. At the time if you talked to anyone about how satisfied they were with the course they were pretty pissed off, somehow the department had managed to mis-grade every single group project for the largest single grade of the year and as a result capped everyone's grade, which for some people was very important. Guess what we wrote in the student survey? That we fucking loved the place. Why? Because student satisfaction counted towards the rankings and we wanted our degrees to be valuable so we wanted a good ranking. All these measures are pretty bollocks.
jossclimb 3y ago
You could just remove universities and the article would still be true.

21 points by krigath 3y ago

Considering how much more funding US universities have, this is inevitable. Also, most people here don't fund endowments or really give back to their universities.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

krigath 3y ago

https://archive.is/imsbv https://archive.is/imsbv

mensetmanusman 3y ago

Interesting that it mentions China rising in the same breath. I'm not sure if I should be surprised there isn't a facet of the rating like: "percent chance you will be disappeared for holding up a blank sheet of paper" or "how excited other countries children are to attend." Maybe the ranking just cares about how much money you are pouring into STEM research.

keiferski 3y ago

I recently spent about a month total in Cambridge and Oxford, just as a remote worker / tourist. Having previously visited Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton, etc. it was my impression that American universities have an order of magnitude more resources than UK ones. Even an average state school campus in the US appears larger and better funded. Of course, Oxford and Cambridge have a centuries-old historical legacy (and are both absolutely worth visiting, although I much preferred Cambridge) but they seemed more dependent on that traditional reputation. So if the “brand” of the UK goes down, it will have a direct effect on the top universities in a way that I don’t think would happen in the US.

lm28469 3y ago
US campuses are mini cities with large amount of money spent on a lot of useless things Europe campuses are buildings with just a bit more than the bare minimum you need to do the job
was_a_dev 3y ago
From a UK perspective, the US "throws money" at everything, both culturally and because you are a larger economy. Education, sports, healthcare, industry, space, science to name a few. The UK also has an opposing culture, we don't invest in the long term in infrastructure or people. Even in your case, you visited the two richest universities (by a long margin) in the UK.
- okeuro49 3y ago
  There's long term investment in London, but the North never recovered after losing its industry. Numerous promises such as "northern powerhouse" have failed to materialise.
  - was_a_dev 3y ago
    I think it would be safe to call London an outlier for the UK, for the reason of how much investment is directed there
  - kranke155 3y ago
    The north didn’t “lose” its industry, im afraid. It was deliberately destroyed as a matter of policy. Deindustrialisation is terrible.
  - thebruce87m 3y ago
    For people outside the UK - English people refer to the north of England as “the North”, even when talking in the context of the UK.
- eli_gottlieb 3y ago
  > The UK also has an opposing culture, we don't invest in the long term in infrastructure or people. That's not really so different from the United States!

dave4420 3y ago

The headline makes it seem like a UK thing, but > Institutions in Europe and the US also fell back, and the report’s authors said the UK’s rankings had held up better than French, German, Japanese and American universities. it feels more like a West vs the Rest (or even a Rest vs China) thing.

was_a_dev 3y ago
Part of this seems inevitable, with the West providing world-class education to Chinese students for decades, which can them be imported back into China Add in the funding China provides to universities, and you would be disheartened if Chinese universities didn't improve

tyingq 3y ago

In the top 50 of the referenced global rankings[1], there are 5 non-western universities. The highest one ranked at 13 (Japan), then 27 (Japan), then 31 (South Korea), and finally 44 and 49 (China). [1] https://cwur.org/2023.php https://cwur.org/2023.php

yorwba 3y ago
You forgot the University of Tokyo, ranked 13.
- tyingq 3y ago
  Ah, thanks! Edited.

SilverBirch 3y ago

55 dropped, 6 stayed the same and 32 improved. Or to put it another way, this really isn't news. Then when you hear 96% of Chinese universities improved... this has nothing to do with the UK at all! Of course if one massive country manages to improve practically all their universities' rankings in 1 year, everyone else in the league table will be going down. The question is what happened? Did the universities actually just all suddenly improve in 1 year? I doubt it. This is almost certainly the rankings changing the way they regard Chinese universities. When I was at Uni we had exactly this game happen. I was at a uni where our department was ranked highest in the country, then the student survey went around. At the time if you talked to anyone about how satisfied they were with the course they were pretty pissed off, somehow the department had managed to mis-grade every single group project for the largest single grade of the year and as a result capped everyone's grade, which for some people was very important. Guess what we wrote in the student survey? That we fucking loved the place. Why? Because student satisfaction counted towards the rankings and we wanted our degrees to be valuable so we wanted a good ranking. All these measures are pretty bollocks.

jossclimb 3y ago

You could just remove universities and the article would still be true.