Excellent Series on Rankings

I have just come across a site, ACCESS, that includes a lot of excellent material on university rankings by Ruth A Pagell, who is Emeritus Faculty Librarian at Emory University and Adjunct Faculty at the University of Hawaii.

I'll provide specific links to some of the articles later

Go here  

There is no such thing as free tuition

It is reported that the Philippines is introducing free tuition in state universities.It will not really be free. The government will have to find P100 billion from a possible  "re-allocation of resources."

If there is a graduate premium for degrees from Philippine universities then this measure will increase existing social inequalities and result in a transfer of wealth from the working class and small businesses to the privileged educated classes.

Unless lecturers work for nothing and buildings and facilities materialize, Hogwarts style, out of nothing, tuition is never free.

Who educates the world's leaders?

According to Times Higher Education (THE), the UK has educated more heads of state and government than any other country. The USA is a close second followed by France. No doubt this will get a let of publicity as the THE summit heads for London but, considering the state of the world, is it really something to be proud of?

America's Top Colleges: 2017 Rankings

America's Top Colleges is published by Forbes business magazine. It is an unabashed assessment of institutions from the viewpoint of the student as investor. The metrics are post-graduate success, debt, student experience, graduation rate and academic success.

The top three colleges are Harvard, Stanford and Yale.

The top three liberal arts colleges are Pomona, Claremont McKenna and Williams.

The top three low debt private colleges are College of the Ozarks, Berea College and Princeton.

The top three STEM colleges are MIT, Caltech and Harvey Mudd College.

Ranking Rankings

Hobsons, the education technology company, has produced a ranking of global university rankings. The information provided is very limited and i hope there will be more in a while. Here are the top five according to a survey of international students inbound to the USA.

1.    QS World University Rankings
2.    THE World University Rankings
3.     Shanghai ARWU
4.     US News Best Global Universities
5.     Center for World University Rankings (formerly published at King Abdulaziz University).        

University of Bolton head thinks he's worth his salary

George Holmes, vice-Chancellor of the University of Bolton with a salary of GBP 220,120 and owner of a yacht and a Bentley, is not ashamed of his salary. According to an article by Camilla Turner in the Daily Telegraph, he says that he has had a very successful career and he hopes his students will get good jobs and have Bentleys.

The university is ranked 86th in the Guardian 2018 league table which reports that 59.2% of graduates have jobs or in postgraduate courses six months after graduation. It does not appear in the THE or QS world rankings.

Webometrics puts it 105th in the UK and 1846th in the world so I suppose he could claim to be head of a top ten per cent university.

Perhaps Bolton should start looking for the owner of a private jet for its next vice-Chancellor. it might do even better.

Highlights from the Princeton Review

Here are the top universities in selected categories in the latest Best Colleges Ranking from Princeton Review. The rankings are based entirely on survey data and are obviously subjective and vulnerable to sampling error.

Most conservative students: University of Dallas, Texas
Most liberal students: Reed College, Oregon
Best campus food: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Happiest students: Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
Party schools: Tulane University, Louisiana
Don't inhale: US Coast Guard Academy, Connecticut
Best college library: University of Chicago, Illinois
Best-run college: University of Richmond, Virginia
Most studious students: Harvey Mudd College, California
Most religious students: Thomas Aquinas College, California
Least religious students: Reed College, Oregon
Best athletic facilities: Auburn University, Alabama.

The world is safe for another year

The Princeton Review has just published the results of its annual survey of 382 US colleges with 62 lists of various kinds. I'll publish a few of the highlights later but for the moment here is one which should make everyone happy.

"Don't inhale" refers to nor using marijuana. Four of the top five places are held by service academies (Coast Guard, Naval, Army, Air Force).

The academies also get high scores in the stone cold sober rankings (opposite of party schools) so everyone can feel a bit safer when they sleep tonight.