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I'd always thought that rankings were mainly dependent on academic peer reviews, recruiter reviews (perception of the institution the graduate came from), and citations per faculty, while academic results weren't as relevant.
US universities are where they are because of the global brain drain. The branding they have built up over the years have stayed solid, not to mention that they were so much more capable of attracting the best around the world as compared to the universities situated in Asia. And as many here has mentioned before, money plays a big role in entry.
I don't think that Asian universities are producing less competent graduates. The strength of the American brand though, is worth its weight in gold. Maybe universities in the States will get dislodged over time as Asian economies grow, who knows.
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It just so happens that after WWII the US was almost completely unscathed(in terms of actual country as there was no fighting on the US mainland thus no damage to the industrial sector(which received heavy government contracts from WWII), no damage to universities, and many top researchers moved to the US. The Cold War then occurred creating a large increase in DoD spending. These 3 effects then combined: bustling industrial sector with lots of money, large DoD research grants, worlds top researchers. These combined to accelerate already decent US universities to being among the best in the world for research. As if this wasn't already enough Silicon Valley started taking shape a decade after WWII. This then created an OBSCENE increase in industrial research funding for the SoCal universities. Recently this has been followed by the creation of Materials Science departments(lets say the last 20 years) and they have started becoming the forefront of scientific advancement(research wise) and this has been exploding in the US. The funding pored into materials science departments is generally more then ANY other department at a university(not counting sports). So we are now left with US universities being the most funded in the world. This now leads to university rankings.
Being a top university is quite misleading and many don't understand what it really means. Essentially its very expensive/almost impossible to accurately measure universities by what really matters(quality of courses taught, how students did after graduating, etc). Due to the complexities involved in ranking by the above most ranking is heavily influenced by 3 things: reputation of faculty(generally the # of papers they put out), the schools brand(think MIT), AND the grant/research money(this is done through the industrial sector mostly as well as government research funds like NSF and NIH) the school receives. Many universities in the US have an established reputation(namely from advancements that occurred in the last 100 years or less), pay the highest so top faculty(generally measured by putting out the most papers which is important in rankings) are inclined to move the US to make money, and are extremely well funded. This then puts US universities at the top of the scale as they have the money, which is assumed to translate to the best education(sadly this doesn't go hand in hand as seen from the US public school system and IMO education at most US universities is highly overrated).
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On September 25 2011 01:36 Thesidu wrote:
lol americans universities are not that much ahead of the rest of the world infact, most people would consider Cambridge to be the best in the world.
Most academics would rightfully consider Harvard to be the best university in the world. Look at the normalized subscores for Harvard here. You can argue what the second best university is, but #1 is not really debatable.
It's a stupid term; the Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings (which take into account things like research output, faculty awards, and so on) have Vermont outside the top 200 schools in the world. It is not one of the top 50 schools in the US by any reasonable metric.
On September 25 2011 01:46 Cel.erity wrote:
I haven't read the entire thread, but the main reason for the disparity is money. The funding for the majority of American elementary-high schools is extremely low, especially compared to other countries who value their children's education higher. On the flipside, the funding for American universities is extremely high compared to other countries, the primary reason being NCAA sports. Frankly, college football and basketball are gigantic industries in America and they produce enough revenue to keep many American universities at the top. UCLA and Notre Dame are two names that come to mind that have benefitted the most from this.
NCAA sports are not the primary reason; the richest schools in the US are mostly private schools which draw in a negligible amount of revenue from their athletic programs.
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Generally the public school stigma gets attached to the American education system as a whole. True, we do have top universities in the world. True also, that our universities accept applicants from abroad, and from successful students not in the same state/community. The end result is our highest level educators really get besmirched by the attacks leveled against our public school system.
Abysmal test scores, inability to compete against foreign students on grade school testing, low graduation rates from high school: these are the problems rampant within the system. There has been some talk about affirmative action in universities, but not much (What use is it belonging to a particular race and meeting an admittance quota to a top university if your strengths and diligence are better served spending first 2 years in community college and transferring instead of receiving poor grades in a school too tough for your current skills). Don't want to get too far off topic with that thought, though.
How is it possible for America to, allegedly, have such horribly bad and ineffective schools, while having the best universities in the world?
Getting back to this, the public schools in America are more under pressure from aggressive teacher's unions and low ability for school choice. Starting with the second thought first, your choice in public school is generally confined geographically i.e. if you live in one area you gotta go to a certain public school. You can't pick another if the teaching staff at that school don't have teaching degrees (or science/humanities degrees) and have poor track records of student performance. Measures to promote student choice (voucher programs are one) are very much opposed by teachers union lobbies. If schools don't have to compete for their students, there's very little incentive for them to work on having a trained staff that is good at teaching them.
Culturally, there's less of a pressure or desire to be a straight-A student and graduate from high school. There exists a coolness factor for being that 'bad boy' and ditching class / dropping out. Fades quickly, though.
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On September 25 2011 13:20 Silver777 wrote:
As if this wasn't already enough Silicon Valley started taking shape a decade after WWII. This then created an OBSCENE increase in industrial research funding for the SoCal universities. Recently this has been followed by the creation of Materials Science departments(lets say the last 20 years) and they have started becoming the forefront of scientific advancement(research wise) and this has been exploding in the US. The funding pored into materials science departments is generally more then ANY other department at a university(not counting sports). So we are now left with US universities being the most funded in the world. This now leads to university rankings.
Rofl, wtf? How in the world did you make such a direct jump from computer science to materials science, and why is materials science "the" forefront of all scientific advancement and research funding?
If anyone actually reads what you wrote, I'm not sure how they can treat you as credible >.>
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On September 25 2011 13:40 Dayrlan wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2011 13:20 Silver777 wrote:
As if this wasn't already enough Silicon Valley started taking shape a decade after WWII. This then created an OBSCENE increase in industrial research funding for the SoCal universities. Recently this has been followed by the creation of Materials Science departments(lets say the last 20 years) and they have started becoming the forefront of scientific advancement(research wise) and this has been exploding in the US. The funding pored into materials science departments is generally more then ANY other department at a university(not counting sports). So we are now left with US universities being the most funded in the world. This now leads to university rankings.
Rofl, wtf? How in the world did you make such a direct jump from computer science to materials science, and why is materials science "the" forefront of all scientific advancement and research funding? If anyone actually reads what you wrote, I'm not sure how they can treat you as credible >.>
Keyword you didn't quote "becoming" (though it probably is already). I also said nothing about computer science as Silicon Valley funding doesn't mean computer science in the least.
Rankings is primarily about funding. Silicon Valley(located by SoCal in the US) = a lot of US industrial funding(was a ton and is still a ton). Materials Science Departments are new and are among the most funded departments in universities, if not the highest.
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To add to this, countries like Singapore, China, Korea, and most Asian countries, are generally consider to have the best schools in the world, with the highest level of school achievements measured by standardized language, math, and science scores
Canada is ranked either 1, 2, or 3 in all of these categories, as well as humanities (social studies). But yeah, American universities are superior just because the rich minority can create these schools imo, while the rest of the school system suffers.
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sure american universities are top schools in the world. but look at their students, a very small fraction of them are actually American born. the reason they are ranked is because of their foreign born brains and their insane amount of research funding.
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On September 25 2011 13:46 Silver777 wrote:
Keyword you didn't quote "becoming" (though it probably is already). I also said nothing about computer science as Silicon Valley funding doesn't mean computer science in the least.
Rankings is primarily about funding. Silicon Valley(located by SoCal in the US) = a lot of US industrial funding(was a ton and is still a ton). Materials Science Departments are new and are among the most funded departments in universities, if not the highest.
Your post assigns a level of importance to materials science that no one except a materials scientist (which you apparently are given your post history) would assign. It's not even notable in this instance (for example, funding to biomedical areas is far more significant). Per faculty member funding for materials science is fairly high; in absolute terms it's dwarfed (due to group size) by biology and other fields.
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There's the real answer to this question, and then there's the ones people will give you on the internet.
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On September 25 2011 14:01 Kizu wrote:
sure american universities are top schools in the world. but look at their students, a very small fraction of them are actually American born. the reason they are ranked is because of their foreign born brains and their insane amount of research funding.
Where are people getting this crap from?
Show me a source where top American universities are even close to a majority of international students.
Preferably divided between undergraduate and graduate students.
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On September 25 2011 14:01 Kizu wrote:
sure american universities are top schools in the world. but look at their students, a very small fraction of them are actually American born. the reason they are ranked is because of their foreign born brains and their insane amount of research funding.
No, it's the fruits of their research and quality of their facilities along with published articles that raise prestige. There's a reason people from foreign countries go to American Universities so you only strengthen the point that they're the best. Quality of teaching for example isnt as highly valued by people doing rankings as things that raise prestige in the academic community like research.
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On September 25 2011 14:04 blah_blah wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2011 13:46 Silver777 wrote:
Keyword you didn't quote "becoming" (though it probably is already). I also said nothing about computer science as Silicon Valley funding doesn't mean computer science in the least.
Rankings is primarily about funding. Silicon Valley(located by SoCal in the US) = a lot of US industrial funding(was a ton and is still a ton). Materials Science Departments are new and are among the most funded departments in universities, if not the highest. Your post assigns a level of importance to materials science that no one except a materials scientist (which you apparently are given your post history) would assign. It's not even notable in this instance (for example, funding to biomedical areas is far more significant). Per faculty member funding for materials science is fairly high; in absolute terms it's dwarfed (due to group size) by biology and other fields.
I would agree that I said nothing about biomedical and that sector is gigantic in research. Most people(IMO) generally think of "University" as chemistry, physics, nuclear, computer science, etc and this leads to Law, Medical, and "University" being thought of separately. Each has a different situation, funding, tuition, research, etc and each is seen as the best in America for education purposes. From this standpoint materials science would be considered quite significant.
Of course none of it matters as I don't have exact numbers and more importantly my overall viewpoint is that US universities are simply more funded then other universities and funding heavily influences rankings and peoples conceptions of a school.
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On September 25 2011 14:15 Elegy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2011 14:01 Kizu wrote:
sure american universities are top schools in the world. but look at their students, a very small fraction of them are actually American born. the reason they are ranked is because of their foreign born brains and their insane amount of research funding.
Where are people getting this crap from? Show me a source where top American universities are even close to a majority of international students. Preferably divided between undergraduate and graduate students.
cant speak for any american universities, but as a 4th year undergrad mechanical engineer at the university of toronto, i can honestly say that here white people are definitely a minority, perhaps being 5%~. the majority of students are definitely coming from asia - chinese, korean, indian, thailand, iran, ukraine, etc. and only around 40% of the professors are white
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On September 25 2011 13:46 Silver777 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2011 13:40 Dayrlan wrote:On September 25 2011 13:20 Silver777 wrote:
As if this wasn't already enough Silicon Valley started taking shape a decade after WWII. This then created an OBSCENE increase in industrial research funding for the SoCal universities. Recently this has been followed by the creation of Materials Science departments(lets say the last 20 years) and they have started becoming the forefront of scientific advancement(research wise) and this has been exploding in the US. The funding pored into materials science departments is generally more then ANY other department at a university(not counting sports). So we are now left with US universities being the most funded in the world. This now leads to university rankings.
Rofl, wtf? How in the world did you make such a direct jump from computer science to materials science, and why is materials science "the" forefront of all scientific advancement and research funding? If anyone actually reads what you wrote, I'm not sure how they can treat you as credible >.> Keyword you didn't quote "becoming" (though it probably is already). I also said nothing about computer science as Silicon Valley funding doesn't mean computer science in the least. Rankings is primarily about funding. Silicon Valley(located by SoCal in the US) = a lot of US industrial funding(was a ton and is still a ton). Materials Science Departments are new and are among the most funded departments in universities, if not the highest.
Silicon Valley is actually in NorCal...FYI
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On September 25 2011 13:32 blah_blah wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2011 01:36 Thesidu wrote:
lol americans universities are not that much ahead of the rest of the world infact, most people would consider Cambridge to be the best in the world. Most academics would rightfully consider Harvard to be the best university in the world. Look at the normalized subscores for Harvard here. You can argue what the second best university is, but #1 is not really debatable. It's a stupid term; the Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings (which take into account things like research output, faculty awards, and so on) have Vermont outside the top 200 schools in the world. It is not one of the top 50 schools in the US by any reasonable metric. Show nested quote +On September 25 2011 01:46 Cel.erity wrote:
I haven't read the entire thread, but the main reason for the disparity is money. The funding for the majority of American elementary-high schools is extremely low, especially compared to other countries who value their children's education higher. On the flipside, the funding for American universities is extremely high compared to other countries, the primary reason being NCAA sports. Frankly, college football and basketball are gigantic industries in America and they produce enough revenue to keep many American universities at the top. UCLA and Notre Dame are two names that come to mind that have benefitted the most from this. NCAA sports are not the primary reason; the richest schools in the US are mostly private schools which draw in a negligible amount of revenue from their athletic programs.
The Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings place UC Berkeley within the top 5 consistently.
It's considered to be a "public ivy".
Yes the term is stupid, and no, no public university in the US comes close to rivaling the best private schools in student quality, but it does convey something somewhat meaningful.
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Uhhh I would argue that Berkeley definitely DOES rival private schools in terms of student quality.
I would say that Penn State, UofM-Ann Arbor and a few other public schools in the U.S. do very well in terms of their student bodies (particularly in a few fields, depending on the school)
So yeah, I'd have to disagree quite strongly with the notion that student bodies of top public schools in the U.S. can't rival the top private ones
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Many public schools rival Cornell (the "worst" Ivy) in student quality. Berkely, UCLA, UMich to name a few.
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On September 24 2011 01:56 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2011 01:48 giuocob wrote:
Universities are private. America has been the site of many, many scientific and academic discoveries in its history, far more than any other country. These people drive universities and make them exceptional.
Most high schools and below are public. It is well known that most anything the American government touches turns to shit, and public schooling is no exception. Well the US does have public universities, of which some are very highly ranked, like UCLA. The best university in Australia, ANU is also public. Although "public" is a bit of a misnomer since the operation of the university isn't decided by government, but it's still funded by government. However, if the school system is so bad, surely that would have an effect on the level of education of the students at start of university, and it seems this should have a flow on effect. I'm not convinced this can explain bad universities in Asian countries with good schools.
Not all public schools are poor.... It's usually only the public schools in the big cities (which are also mirrored by fantastic private schools--although fewer in number). The public schools out in suburbs are usually much better and can sometimes even reach the quality of a private school. It really depends how much the local city is willing to pump into their school system.
I think it's a generalization to say that all public schools are bad... my graduating class put out something near 80% college freshman, which is really high for a public school.
Also, there is a HUGE difference between some crappy state school and flagship state schools or private research institutions.
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On September 25 2011 15:50 chenchen wrote:The Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings place UC Berkeley within the top 5 consistently.
It's considered to be a "public ivy".
What's your point? Berkeley is one of the best research institutions in the US, private or otherwise, and the metrics bear that out. Public schools like Wisconsin, Washington, several of the UC campuses, and Michigan also score very well according to the metrics. Berkeley, despite offering excellent academics (superior at the graduate level to most of the Ivy League schools, in fact), also offers a very different undergraduate experience (which can safely be characterized as 'worse' in most ways) than that found at the real Ivy Leagues chools.
Schools like Vermont and Miami-Ohio are not comparable to Ivy League schools in any meaningful way. I mean you might be able to find some metric by which some of these schools beat Dartmouth, but most of the so-called public ivies are substantially inferior to actual Ivy League schools in terms of research output, faculty quality, quality of student body, endowment size per capita, and just about any reasonable metric of school quality that you would like to use. This classification is basically a feel-good one for students not good enough to get into an Ivy League school (or, unfortunately, unable to afford going -- although the better Ivy League schools offer amazing financial aid).
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EPT
