Resources alone may not be enough

Universitas 21 has just published its annual ranking of higher education systems. There are four criteria each containing several metrics: resources, connectivity, environment and output.
The ranking has received a reasonable amount of media coverage although not as much as THE or QS.

A comparison of the ranks for the Resources indicator, comprising five measures of expenditure, and for Output, which includes research, citations, performance on rankings, graduation rates and enrolments, produces some interesting insights. There are countries such as Denmark and Switzerland that do well for both. China, Israel and some European countries seem to be very good at getting a high output from the resources available. There are others, including Turkey, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia, that appear to have adequate or more than adequate resources but whose rank for output is not so high. 

These are of course limited indicators and it could perhaps just be a matter of time before the resources produce the desired results. The time for panic or celebration may not have arrived yet. Even so, it does seem that some countries or cultures are able to make better use of their resources than others.

The table below orders countries according to the difference between their ranks for resources and for output. Ireland is 20 places higher for output than it is for resources. India is seven places lower.

The relatively poor performance for Singapore is surprising given that country's reputation for all round excellence. Possibly there is a point where expenditure on higher education runs into diminishing or even negative returns.

China	+20
Ireland	+20
Russia	+18
Greece	+16
Hungary	+14
Italy	+14
UK	+11
Israel	+10
Slovenia	+10
South Korea	+10
Australia	+8
USA	+8
Spain	+7
Taiwan	+4
Bulgaria	+3
Germany	+3
Iran	+3
Netherlands	+3
Japan	+3
Czech Republic	+2
Belgium	+1
Croatia	+1
Romania	+1
Thailand	+1
Finland	0
France	0
Indonesia	0
New Zealand	0
Canada	-1
Denmark	-1
Portugal	-1
Argentina	-2
Norway	-2
Poland	-2
South Africa	-2
Switzerland	-2
Ukraine	-5
Hong Kong	-4
Sweden	-5
India	-7
Chile	-9
Singapore	-9
Austria	-11
Mexico	-13
Serbia	-13
Slovakia	-14
Turkey	-14
Brazil	-16
Saudi Arabia	-25
Malaysia	-28