by Tom Kando
Once in a while, I play with statistics that list and rank the world’s major universities. At this time, such a game may be a welcome distraction from the double nightmare of Covid-19 and Trump’s attempted Coup d’Etat.
My
source is the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2020.html The Academic Ranking of World Universities
(ARWU) was created in 2003. It uses six
indicators, including the number of
Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of highly cited researchers,
number of articles published in scholarly journals, number of articles indexed
in Science Citation Index, and per capita performance of a university. More
than 1800 universities are ranked every year and the best 1000 are published. I
don’t know whether their methodology is the best, but they have good
credibility, and at least they can’t be
suspected of pro-America bias.
I last wrote such an article about three years ago. I now offer you an update, with some interesting factoids. All calculations are mine. I hope that you enjoy perusing these. I focus first on the top 100 and then on the top 500 universities of the world.
Table 1. Top Universities of the world. By Region
|
Region |
Top 100 |
101-500 |
Total 500 |
% |
|
Europe |
36 |
147 |
183 |
36.6 |
|
North America |
45 |
108 |
153 |
30.6 |
|
Asia |
11 |
100 |
111 |
22.2 |
|
Australia-New Zea. |
7 |
19 |
26 |
5.2 |
|
Middle East |
1 |
11 |
12 |
2.4 |
|
Latin America |
0 |
9 |
9 |
1.8 |
|
Africa |
0 |
6 |
6 |
1.2 |
|
Anglo Countries |
60 |
157 |
217 |
43.4% |
However, when we compare the number of universities on a per capita basis, a different ranking emerges, as shown in table 2.
Table 2. World’s Top 500 Universities and Population Ratio
|
Countries |
People per University |
|
1-2. Sweden (11
universities), Switzerland (8 universities) |
900,000 - 1 million |
|
3-5. Australia (23
universities), Hong Kong (7 universities), Denmark (5 universities) |
1.1 - 1.2 million |
|
6-8. Austria (7
universities), Estonia (1 university), Netherlands (12 universities) |
1.3 - 1.4 million |
|
9. Israel (6
universities); |
1.5 million |
|
10-12: Belgium (7
universities), Ireland (3 universities), New Zealand (3 universities) |
1.6 million |
|
13-14. Norway (3
universities), Finland (3 universities) |
1.8 million |
|
15-16. United Kingdom
(35 universities), Canada (20 universities)
|
1.9 million |
|
17. USA (133
universities) |
2.5 million |
|
18-19. Germany (32
universities), Singapore (2 universities) |
2.6 - 2.8 million |
|
20-23. Portugal (3
universities), Italy (17 univ.), France (17 univ.), Croatia (1 univ.) |
3.5 - 4 million |
|
24-26. Spain (10
universities), South Korea (11 universities), Taiwan (5 universities) |
4.7 - 4.8 million |
|
27-28 . Serbia (1
university), Saudi Arabia (4 universities) |
7 - 8.4 million |
|
29. Japan (14
universities) |
9 million |
|
30-31. Czechia (1
university), Greece (1 university) |
11 million |
|
32. South Africa (4
universities) |
14.5 million |
|
33-34. Chile (1
university), Poland (2 universities) |
19 million |
|
35. China (70
universities) |
20 million |
|
36-37. Malaysia (1 university),
Brazil (6 universities) |
33 - 35 million |
|
38-39. Argentina (1
university), Russia (3 universities) |
44 - 48 milion |
|
40. Thailand (1
university) |
69.5 million |
|
41-43. Iran, Turkey.,
Egypt (1 university each) |
82-98 million |
|
44. Mexico (1
university) |
126 million |
China and rest of Asia: This
region has a sizable number of universities: 111 among the top 500. China’s
share of this is 70, that of Japan is 14 and South Korea’s is 11. However, on a
per capita basis, the Asian countries’
“university density” remains significantly lower than those of North America
and Western Europe (Except for Hong
Kong).
Now for Some Specifics:
Having cautioned the American
reader not to gloat about the very large
ABSOLUTE number of top universities located in the US, I now turn to an
examination of the United States. Of the world’s top 13 universities, 11 are in the US and the remaining 2
are in the United Kingdom. They are the usual suspects:
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Cambridge
4. MIT
5. UC Berkeley
6. Princeton
7. Columbia
8. Cal Tech
9. Oxford
10. Univ. of Chicago
11. Yale
12. Cornell
13. UCLA
Of the world’s top 25
universities, 18 are in the US, 4 in the UK and 1 each in France, Switzerland
and Canada.
Three American “leagues” or
“groups” are of special interest to me: (1) The Ivy League,
(2) the University of California and (3)the
Big Ten. I
will also discuss (4) some other universities with which I have been
associated, either as a student or as a faculty member. I will
then provide some information about (5) Europe,
and finally I will point out (6) the areas
and countries of greatest weakness.
I was a professor at UC Riverside (U. of California) and at Penn State (Big Ten), and my PhD is from the Univ. of Minnesota (Big Ten). Also, my daughters graduated from UC Berkeley and UC Davis (U. of California). Alas, we were neither smart enough nor rich enough to become affiliated with the Ivy League. Nevertheless, I will start out with this league, because it is exceedingly prestigious and because it excels above all other institutions of higher learning.
1. The US Ivy League consists of 8 universities, 6 of which are among the world’s top 20:
University: World ranking:
Harvard 1
Princeton 6
Columbia 8
Yale 11
Cornell 12
Univ. of Penn. 19.
2. The University of California has10 campuses, 4 of which are among the world’s top 21, 7 among the world’s top 100:
Campus: World
ranking:
Berkeley 5
UCLA 13
San Diego 18
San Francisco 21
Santa Barbara 49
Irvine 69
Davis 91
3. The Big Ten is a largely Midwestern league of top-notch
universities. It has gradually expanded to 14 members. Here are the Big Ten’s
top 10 universities:
Campus: World ranking:
Michigan 22
Northwestern 30
Wisconsin 31
Minnesota 40
Illinois 45
Maryland 53
Purdue 79
Penn State 101
- 150
Michigan State 101
- 150
Indiana 101
- 150
Together, universities that belong to the Ivy league, the University of California and and the Big Ten account for over one third of the world’s top 50 universities. Add to them a few independent universities such as Chicago (#10 in the world) Johns Hopkins (15), Washington U., St Louis (23), Duke (27), New York University (27), U. of North Carolina (31), Texas (41), Rockefeller (43) and Colorado (44) and you have over half of the world’s top 50 universities.
4. Universities with which I have been affiliated
These universities are
listed by the chronology of my life, and
each is followed by its ranking in the world.
The first 3 are institutions which I attended as a student, the remaining
6 are universities where I taught.
Union College not
listed
University of Amsterdam 101 - 150
University of Minnesota 40
University of Wisconsin 32
Cal State, Sacramento not
listed
Cal State East Bay not
listed
UC Riverside 201
- 300
Penn State 101
- 150
Chapman College not
listed
5. Europe:
The countries of greatest
interest to me are those where I lived - Hungary, France and the Netherlands.
Hungary is a poor country. None of its universities is ranked in the top 500. However, it has five universities ranked between 501 and 1,000.
France’s record is the 7th best in the world: Its best university is Paris-Saclay (ranked 14th in the world). 5 of its universities are ranked among the world’s 100 best, including the venerable Sorbonne (#39). 17 of its universities are among the world’s 500 best.
The Netherlands’ record is excellent. In absolute terms, it ranks 10th in the world (with a total of 13 universities).
In per capita terms, its rank is even better, in 8th
position. Its highest ranked universities are Utrecht (52) and Groningen (69).
4 of its universities rank among the world’s top 100.
The top 500 universities of the world are distributed among 44 countries. What about the rest of the world?
Eastern Europe: This region has only
1 university listed among the world’s
top 100: Moscow State University,
ranked #93. The only other 2 countries which have universities listed
among the top 500 are Poland (2) and
Czechia (1).
Latin America: This continent has no university among the world’s top 100. As we saw, Brazil does have 6 universities among the top 500, and Argentina, Chile and Mexico each have 1.
South Asia: The combined population of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is nearly one quarter of the world’s. Yet none of these countries have a single university among the world’s top 500
The Middle East: As we saw, this region has 12 universities among the world’s top 500.
Africa: Of the continent’s 54 countries, only 2 have universities among the world’s top 500: Sout
h Africa has 4 and Egypt and Ethiopia each have 1.
The remaining 81 countries of the world have no university listed among the Shanghai ranking.
This article is not about
bragging, or about Eurocentric or
US/Anglo chauvinism. I merely document a
current reality. All of this has to do with
(1) socio-economics and (2) cultural preponderance. Today, English is the world language, as was
French a few hundred years ago and Latin before that. You may call it cultural domination. For now, the
knowledge industry still takes place
mostly in that part of the world which
can most afford it.
Nor does this article
address the growing inequity
embedded in the entire US and
international university system. By and large, the world’s top universities are
for the rich and the privileged. They represent the elite, and the trend is
getting worse. But this subject is for another day.
11 comments:
“So, with all these grand universities, how come Americans still elected Donald Trump president?”
Because there is a big difference between academic intelligence and common sense! As William Buckley said "I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."
William Buckley was wrong! It's often the impractical dreamers who move the reluctant world forward, however improbable or unwworkable their ideas seem at first. As for Trump, I think a lot of Americans voted for a guy they perceive as an Alpha Male, ignoring his failures of judgement, character, government experience, and knowledge. They admire him as they did comic-book heroes in the movies when they were kids, and more recently, in computer games. He's their their cult leader. When things go badly, then--like God--Trump knows why and all will be revealed in his own good time. We have only to be patient. When things go well, he has pulled off yet another miracle. They will never change their minds. Also, you mention English as the prevailing lingua franca and of course you're right. Lack of familiarity or lack of ease in using it is one of the barriers to entry into a University, no matter how bright the applicant. It is harder for native speakers of a non-standard dialect of English to be accepted, than for speakers of English as a Second/Foreign Language, who slip up occasionally. Non-standard dialects are unfairly perceived as symptoms of a lack of intelligence. The analysis of universities around the world was really interesting. Thanks, Tom!
I love the first anonymous’ honest and terribly mistaken opinion.
As I was preparing my response to him, Anonymous #2 came to my rescue, for which I thank him. Of course, I totally agree with him that Trump’s following in many ways resembles a cult (even though it’s difficult to visualize a cult with 73 million members). But I didn’t want to once again rehash my incredibly long list of objections to Donald Trump. Instead, this is what I wrote in reaction to Anonymous #1:
You claim that when we rely more on the “common sense” intelligence of the man in the street, we make better political decisions than when we listen to academic eggheads.
Case in point: We elected Trump to the presidency. And it is well-known that those without a college education support Trump in much larger numbers than do college graduates.
Ergo, colleges and universities stand in the way of progress and good government (William Buckley). Better yet: “The four corners of deceit are government, academia, science and the media.” (Rush Limbaugh). Good luck with that!
Tom, I love the way your mind works. Always curious and looking for truth "no matter which corner". Amazing, the respectful relationship you have with numbers. And I like your willingness to let the results speak for themselves... leaving the interpretations for later. Keep up the good work!
Hi Tom,
Interesting list. However, you say there is no pro-America bias in these numbers, but I think there is a pro-American and pro-European bias in the used method. Or more specifically a bias towards cultures that scored high in the past.
The most important way to end high on this list seems to be to get many and important scientific references (in several ways). I believe scientists will be more likely to use references closer to there own culture and region, because they are easier to find, easier to check and easier to understand and they come from reputable institutions.
So the bias is making this list change slower. So to know how the universities are doing now, you have to look at how the list changed the last decades and amplify the change.
The difficult question is, how much to magnify this change.
Greetings, John
PS Another way to climb on the list is Nobel prizes, awarded by the Scandinavian Nobel committee. Some bias towards European/Western culture is possible there as well.
Thanks, Hutch!
To John: Good points. I’m sure that there could still be pro-Western bias, even though the source is from China. Actually, I did briefly compare this year’s numbers with those of 3 years ago (when I last posted such an article), and there is indeed a slight decline in the preponderance of American (and European) universities among the top 100 or so.
As to the Nobel Prize, sure. I have often wondered how it deals with this possible problem. For one thing, candidates have to be nominated by peers, and that’s a whole complicated can of worms...
Thanks Dr. Tom for this brilliant analysis of the ranking of universities. I never knew about this. I always thought that the ranking came from the United States. I am glad that you cleared up my biased interpretation and allowed me to get an expanded view of rankings and also how power and privilege plays a role here as well. I love your wife’s rhetorical comment about, ... “so why did Americans elect Trump”. That is a genius statement! I laughed out loud.
I enjoyed the read and will check out your article from three years ago on this very subject. I’m sure it has a lot of great information in it as well.
Thanks again,
Gail:-)
Your interpretation of these data, Tom?
In today's NYT Bret Stephens translated B.A. as "Bankrupted by the Arts." Who will fight back against this outrageous libel?
To Gail and Bill:
it’s great that eminent people such as you respond to my scribblings. (At least according to this source, your universities are among the top ranked in the world)
I haven’t read the NYT article which Bill mentions. I don’t have much of an interpretation for the data I present. The piece is merely a quick, “descriptive”attempt, with no pretense at serious scholarship.
That said, let me give you some “context:”
I am an immigrant who came over to this country as a Fulbright student at 18. I then went back to get an MA in Amsterdam and later I returned to the US permanently for a PhD from Minnesota, etc.
I was incredibly impressed by America’s preponderance in the academic world in the 1960s. A large proportion of our reading assignments in Holland was by American scholars - Merton, Homans, Parsons, Hoebel, etc..
So the comparative contribution to knowledge by different countries remains interesting to me, on a personal level (I have also published analyses of the distribution of Nobel prizes). Once in a while I like to check on these things. I don’t know whether such numbers are meaningful or not.
I suppose there is also a tinge of nationalism in me: All the talk about American decline, etc. I get many e-mails from my intellectual friends overseas, with their incessant anti-Americanism, their analyses of how terminally broken our political system, our culture, our economic system, our entire society are.
So, in a knee-jerk sort of way, I enjoy showing that this country still possesses half of all the great universities of the world...this country must be doing something right, despite Trump, the Covid-19, racism, and all the other American horror which some European intellectuals love to dwell upon...
As to anti-intellectualism and paranoia in America (the Hofstadter topics), look at some of the comments that follow my article, anonymous’ William Buckley quote and my Rush Limbaugh quote. Of course, there is plenty of that...
I sympathize with your standpoint, Tom. But one may ask: is our university system, AS A PEDAGOGICAL [not research] SYSTEM, not proving itself as anachronistic as our national constitution, whose 18th-c. design as a bulwark against popular democracy has yielded in our day a completely dysfunctional government, beholden to senators from thinly populated and civilizationally backward states, the president unable to appoint their own top officials without fear of the backwoodsmen's vetos? And, analogically, students graduating without preparation for real jobs and often burdened heavily by debt? Isn't the German and other European countries' univ. sys., with concentration in fields that do qualify graduates directly for real jobs -- as lawyers, doctors, secondary-level professors, scientists, etc. -- preferable?
Your comments express my sentiments precisely: It seems to me that often, throughout history, the guy (or country) that is forward is eventually leapfrogged by those who were formerly the laggards.
Growing up in Europe after World War Two, I remember how the words “American” and “advanced” were synonymous. “American” meant modern, efficient, practical, high-tech. Everything made in America - machines, political systems, laws, education - was better, worked better. America landed men on the moon, for crying out loud!
But it seems to be a natural tendency to become attached to the things and the ways that work well for us. Thus, frequently, we fail to evolve, to progress. Others, formerly behind us, then overtake us.
America is being overtaken - technologically, educationally, politically. Its constitution is the oldest in the world, its educational system is impractical (unlike the apprentice system in Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere), etc. First, countries such as Japan and Germany passed us technologically, now comes China. Many countries - in Western Europe, as well as Australia, Canada and others - are politically and materially doing better than we are. Nothing makes this clearer than the way different countries have handled the pandemic - our response has been the most ineffective of all. And as to our political system, our electoral college, our undemocratic senate, our criminal justice system, so many things make it very dysfunctional. In sum, this country needs to evolve, or it will fall further behind.
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