UK universities slide down global rankings
thetimes.co.uk
UK universities slide down global rankings
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: UK universities slide down global rankings
#2Considering 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.
Re: UK universities slide down global rankings
#3Re: UK universities slide down global rankings
#4Interesting 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.
Re: UK universities slide down global rankings
#5I 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.
Re: UK universities slide down global rankings
#6The 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.
Re: UK universities slide down global rankings
#7I 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 a…
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.
Re: UK universities slide down global rankings
#8I 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 a…
While good amenities may matter for certain types of research (biotech), what about disciplines such as maths, which require good thinking, a piece of paper to draw on, and that's about it? If you look at the results of the International Mathematical Olympiad, many of the really successful countries (Russia, Hungary, Romania, Iran) aren't very rich.
A possible explanation would be brain-drain: talented mathematicians leaving too-poor Oxford for better pay in the US. Does that happen?
Re: UK universities slide down global rankings
#9The 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.
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
Re: UK universities slide down global rankings
#10I 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 a…
While good amenities may matter for certain types of research (biotech), what about disciplines such as maths, which require good thinking, a piece of paper to draw on, and that's about it? If you look at the results of the International Mathematical Olympiad, many of the really successful countries (Russia, Hungary, Romania, Iran) aren't very rich. A possible explanation would be brain-drain: talented mathematicians…
Academic pay is vastly higher in comparable US institutions, and it's fairly easy to get a work visa as an academic. The brain drain is probably weaker than you would expect because so few of us went into academia for the money, but I definitely know of talented people who have left Oxford for the US with money as one of the key reasons.