"University reputations and finances often hinge on their position in global ranking tables. Students use rankings to quickly identify the best place to study - or, at least, what might be perceived to be the best by any future employer. Even a small shift in rank can affect how many students apply to a university, altering the income from tuition fees ( R.-D. Baltaru et al. Stud. High. Educ. 47, 2323-2335; 2022)."
"And governments love the simplicity of rankings. Many will fund their citizens' overseas study only at institutions that are high up the listings. National investment initiatives - such as Russia's 5-100 Academic Excellence project and Japan's Top Global University project - often focus on universities that have a chance of making it into the upper echelons of the rankings. The UK government offers its High Potential Individual visas only to candidates who have studied at highly ranked universities."
"Such reliance on rankings means that universities are shaped not by the needs of society or by innovations driven from inside the international higher-education community, but by unappointed third-party ranking agencies. The indicators used by some of the dominant flagship rankings don't capture the full range of qualities and functions of higher-education institutions. Each agency uses a slightly different ranking method, but all typically focus on a narrow range of criteria. These are centred heavily on publication-based measures, such as citations, and on reputation surveys."
"The consequence is that most of the world's universities tend to pursue one flavour of 'excellence', which looks rather like the old, wealthy, conservative, research-intensive institutions of high-income nations. Meanwhile, universities are facing a series of problems - from diminishing public funding and trust, to decreasing curriculum relevance in a rapidly changing job market and the need to demonstrate real-world impact from research. There is no shortag"
University reputations and finances depend heavily on positions in global ranking tables. Student application numbers change with rank shifts, affecting tuition revenue. Many governments fund overseas study only at highly ranked institutions and focus national investment programs on universities likely to rise in rankings. Visa and scholarship eligibility can depend on attendance at top-ranked universities. Third-party ranking agencies exert outsized influence on institutional priorities. Dominant rankings emphasize publication-based metrics, such as citations, and reputation surveys, omitting many institutional functions. That emphasis encourages pursuit of a narrow model of excellence resembling established, wealthy, research-intensive universities. Universities face falling public funding, eroding trust, curriculum-job market mismatch, and pressure to demonstrate real-world research impact.
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