Tag: universities

(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions?

Readers might need some inspiration for trivia questions about the latest Times Higher Education Impact Rankings so I thought I’d help out.  The Russia Federation had more universities represented than any other country in the 2022 rankings BUT in which SDG category are none of them listed?  It’s a good test of whether anyone can remember all the SDGs but for those that can, the unsurprising answer would be Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

This is despite the fact that 49* Russian institutions were listed in that category in the 2021 rankings and it highlights the big problem when you allow universities to self-report and select which categories they enter because they can be really quite good at some things but ignore or even oppose others.  It is difficult to see how a Russian institution could be good at, say, “peace” when there could be 15 years in prison and other serious penalties for mentioning “war” or “invasion”.  Strong institutions also come under serious pressure when Russian Political Rights rank a 5/40 and Civil Liberties rank 14/60 according to Freedom House.

Universities can be enfeebled as institutions by political power and the outcome can be that they even become agents of coercion and repression.  Examples include the Higher School of Economics restricting political activism on campus in 2020 and more recently hundreds of students reported as having been expelled and some students playing an active role in hunting down activist teachers.  The tightening of the Russian Government’s grip on senior administrative appointments and strategic direction is well documented and one author has suggested, “controlling universities via rector appointment may serve as an instrument for controlling young minds.”

THE Fails On Effective Action to Minimise Credibility, Prestige and Marketing

Also, unsurprising is that the universities have continued to use their presence in the Impact Rankings to publicise themselves despite the words of Times Higher Education Chief Executive Paul Howarth on 4 March that “we will be taking steps to ensure that Russian universities are not using branding or other promotional opportunities offered by THE until further notice.”  Here’s a snip from Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University showing how feeble that statement was and why the THE should ban institutions from the rankings.

It would be good to think that the full weight of the THE’s legal machinery might come crashing down on the Russian universities that are continuing to use the organization’s logo and public properties for their own promotional purposes.  But as we have seen in a previous blog Study Portals, the THE’s partners in monetizing student mobility, also continues to promote the THE ranking of Russian universities.  The statement from THE looks increasingly like a cynical PR ploy to play for time and hope that nobody remembered the promises made.  

Lilliput or Brobdingnag

In Jonathan Swift’s books Gulliver becomes a giant amongst the people of the island country of Lilliput during his first voyage because they are only 6 inches tall.  But the second voyage takes him to a peninsula called Brobdingnag where he lives with a farmer who is about 72 feet tall.  It is a reminder that there is a perspective to most things and the Impact Rankings are worth considering in that respect.

So, another good trivia question might be – universities in which countries seem disinterested in the Impact Rankings?  A good answer might be the USA where only 42 universities are shown but even lower is China where only 13 universities are featured.  The USA number is even down on last year’s 45.

It is difficult to believe that the USA does not have more than that number of institutions with a strong record in sufficient SDG categories to make a bid for the top place.  As it is, only one of the 12 US institutions who rank in the THE’s own world top 20 seems to have taken part.  Neither of the Chinese universities in the world top 20 are mentioned in the Impact Rankings and the three from the UK are also missing.

Professor Barney Glover of the table topping Western Sydney University recognised the problem and commented, “there are too many of the very strong and powerful universities in the world that are not recognised” in the Impact Rankings.”  His university’s website doesn’t go so far as to acknowledge that situation or that less than half the universities in the World Rankings feature in the Impact Rankings.  But I think he may realizes that WSU was visiting Lilliput on this occasion.

Writing in University World News Dr Anand Kulkarni makes the point that while the number of Indian universities participating grew  that “what is also noticeable is that, unlike the World University Rankings, the famed Indian Institutes of Technology are not as prominent.” Rankings expert Ellen Hazelkorn noted that absence of many leading universities “may not be due to their poor(er) performance but rather their choice not to participate” and commented on the THE Impact Rankings reliance on “self-reported and interpreted data”.  If, as claimed by THE chief knowledge officer, Phil Baty the Impact Ranking are “redefining excellence in global higher education” it rather makes one wonder why the THE don’t have the courage of their convictions and drop their other league tables.

There is a tradition in the English Football Association Challenge Cup (the FA Cup) that there are qualifying rounds before the First Round Proper when teams from the bottom two tiers of the professional Leagues join.  The Second Round Proper sees the teams from the second tier join and finally the Premier League teams join for the Third Round Proper.  The Impact Rankings look a little like selecting the winner of the FA Cup long before the Third Round Proper.

Not The Only Game In Town

This is not to argue that many of the institutions who enter aren’t doing magnificent work in some areas related to the SDGs.  But it does suggest that some institutions have recognized that the THE Impact Rankings are just another attempt to build rankings for commercial benefit and private equity gain or are simply unwilling to undertake the extra administration for little gain.  There are also other channels, with Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, Rice, Harvard and Northeastern not featuring in the Impact Rankings but all being mentioned in a recent United Nations Foundation blog highlighting innovative ways progress on the SDGs is being driven by universities in the US.

There is also increasing evidence that students are less interested in rankings and more focused on employability while interest in the SDGs seems less evident.  The THE’s own research suggests that “only 16 per cent said they would choose a university that had a worse reputation for teaching and research if it had a better reputation for sustainability.”  It may be that the refusal of significant numbers of universities to become involved is a sign that the merry go round of league table mania has passed its peak.  

Note:

The title of this blog is a small nod to the classic tune “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding” written by Nick Lowe and originally released by his band Brinsley Schwarz in 1974.  It became more famous when recorded by Elvis Costello and the Attractions in 1978 but even then was only a B-side.  It has been played by many artists to reflect hope in troubled times and the message seems very pertinent right now.

 Image by Joan Cabras from Pixabay 

*As a note of clarification. In its Overall Rankings list the THE only shows the top three scores of the institution plus their SDG17 ranking. They list separately, presumably for all institutions registering a score in the specific category, the ranking for each individual SDG. Thus, in 2021, 27 out of 75 Russian institutions had SDG 16 count towards their overall ranking but 49 were listed as having a score in the SDG 16 category.

Matryoshka Dolls for THE and Study Portals

The Times Higher Education made a big play about “solidarity with Ukraine, and our rejection of Russia’s aggression” back on 2 March, 2022 and said they will keep the situation under constant review.  Despite all that has happened since then nothing seems to have changed in the THE response and they continue to promote Russian universities in their current league tables.  They seem to have taken no action at all to reduce the THE Student promotion of Russian universities with detailed information about the institutions being routed through their partner in inaction Study Portals.

It’s a little like a Matryoshka (commonly known as Russian) Doll where the parts are nested inside each other so you can’t see the entire thing at once. The start is when a student searches on the THE Student site and finds that there are 359 courses in the Russian Federation and they are all given equal prominence to any other course.

The curious student clicks a specific course, say on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and finds that they can study this in Russia.  The neat trick is that they have to go off to the Study Portals site to pursue their enquiries so THE can presumably say it is not having specific publicity about the institution on its site. 

A month or so ago Study Portals said it was “terrified and upset at our core seeing the war in Ukraine unfold” but was cautious to not say anything about taking action to even reduce the prominence of Russian universities on its website.  So here is the link from THE Student promoting study at Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU).

It probably goes without saying that Andrey I. Rudskoy, Rector of the University is one of the signatories to the infamous statement from the Russian Union of Rectors saying it is “..very important these days to support our country, our army, which defends our security, to support our President…”

Rector Rudskoy also comments in an interview that league table rankings are “a marketing tool for attracting external audiences and working with academic reputation”.  His position echoes that of the Russian government in their desire for credibility and prestige through rankings. So it is no real surprise to see Study Portals focus on its rankings position.

And then the whole circle becomes complete with the list of league table rankings which Study Portals will be able to continue even if the Ukraine war goes on until next year because the THE are doing nothing to suspend Russian universities from their rankings. QS and US News and World Report also continue to promote the institutions.

To compound matters Study Portals has no compunction about promoting Russia as a study destination.

The page goes on to tell us about Russians who have become globally famous. “From athletes like Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova, to composers like Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, or Shostakovich, to great authors like Nabokov, and Dostoyevsky (and all other “-evsky”s, and “-ov”s and “-ova”s), Russia gave us of the most influential people in history.” 

Sharp eyed observers will note that of the two living people one became a US citizen in 2010 and the other has lived in the US since she was seven.  The others are all dead and there is a conspicuous failure to mention the Russian who is the most globally influential and notorious at the current time. The word omission in the sentence probably reflects the care and attention to detail but does nothing to hide the flimsiness of the insight.

That’s it really.  There are no notes on any of the pages to suggest that students might be wary of attending a country where they can be carted off to jail for using the world “war”.  No reflection of the “assault on academic freedom” in Russia has accelerated in recent years with universities having their licenses suspended, students expelled, Government control of foreign academic collaboration and prevented academics attending international conferences.

Matryoshka dolls are often carved to reflect a theme and embody the concept of an idea within an idea. The idea that THE Student and Study Portals seem to be capturing is that everything is normal and there is no reason to raise realities or suggest that anything is amiss. That seems quite wrong.

More unity, less inaction needed from UK higher education

By Alan Preece  published in University World News on 18 March 2022

United Kingdom higher education responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine reflect the inability of the community to respond collectively, promptly or effectively to issues of importance. Umbrella groups and individual institutions stalled and prevaricated as they lagged behind other countries in responding to demands for concerted action.

It may have been a failure of planning, but other recent sector-wide issues suggest it may be a systemic point of failure in a sector where self-regulation and self-interest encourage inaction and obfuscation.

Fail to plan, plan to fail

The invasion started on 24 February, but the first statement by Universities UK was not until 28 February, which was an age given the potential to plan ahead and consider how to respond.

Even slower was the Russell Group, which did not manage a public response until 7 March, after the media had featured their lack of even the most basic of statements. Two weeks after the invasion there was still no statement on the Russell Group website.

By contrast, on the day after the invasion, the German Ministry of Education and Research said: “All current and planned activities with Russia are being frozen and subjected to critical review. There will be no new activities until further notice.”

By 4 March, the European Union had “decided to halt cooperation with Russian entities in research, science and innovation”, which included halting payments under existing contracts as well as making no new agreements. The Netherlands, Slovenia, Denmark and Lithuania had all reached the same position.

Universities UK was obliged to update its position when the Russian Union of Rectors (RUR) issued a statement on 4 March supporting “the Russian army and President Vladimir Putin’s decision to take military action in Ukraine”.

The response was to suspend a memorandum of understanding between Universities UK and the RUR, which coincided with the decision of the European University Association (of which Universities UK is a member) to suspend membership of 12 Russian university signatories. The sense of being bounced into defensive action rather than anticipating and leading continued to prevail.

Waiting is the hardest part

Perhaps UK higher education took its slow-walk lead from the glacial response of elements of the UK government.

On 27 February George Freeman MP, parliamentary under-secretary of state for science, research and innovation, tweeted that he had instigated a “rapid … review of all Russian beneficiaries (whether academic collaborators, companies or directors) of UK science, research, technology and innovation funding”.

By 7 March UK Research and Innovation was “pausing all payments to grants with potential Russian partners”, but saying, “we await further [British] government advice”.

More than two weeks later neither Freeman, UK Research and Innovation, nor the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy had deigned to update their websites on the progress of the “rapid” review or its consequences.

Secretary of State for Education Nadhim Zahawi appears to have been sidelined from this issue, but recently promised to “crack down hard” on academics referred to by party colleague Robert Halfon MP as “useful idiots” for Putin. This looks like pandering to media attention rather than taking meaningful decisions about whether UK university links with Russian institutions are appropriate.

This may be another factor behind the delays by some UK universities in taking decisive action. Professor Colin Riordan, vice-chancellor of Cardiff University, a member of the Russell Group, told The Guardian on 4 March that “if the government were to tell his university to cut ties with Russia, it would do so because of the ‘bigger things at stake’.”

Professor Steve West, the president of the vice-chancellors’ group Universities UK, said: “I think we have to expect science sanctions … what is happening is a challenge on democracy and the safety and stability of the free world.”

At face value we appear to have institutions that are proud to promote their status as self-governing and autonomous, delaying taking decisive action until the government tells them what to do. Even when they acknowledge the threat to “the safety and stability of the free world” and the “bigger things at stake”, they seem unable to make a decision.

Governments in other countries may have recognised the capacity of universities to prevaricate and been wise to simply take the decision out of their hands.

At the individual university level, a number of institutions have demonstrated it is entirely possible to act promptly and with vigour. On 28 February the University of Warwick was reviewing all Russian links with a view to “terminating contracts where possible”. As early as 4 March the universities of Aberdeen, St Andrews and Dundee confirmed they had already cut ties with Russia and Edinburgh University was reviewing its investment stake in Sberbank.

By contrast, some universities have made no public statement, even of support for Ukraine, or have relied on the backstop position provided by Universities UK.

Keele University says: “We are working closely with other institutions in the UK higher education sector to coordinate our response.” This implies a joined-up response that is not evident in reality and exposes the tensions inherent in the sector.

A pattern of behaviour

For those who think this failure to unify is only a feature of a crisis, it is worth considering two other recent and important issues.

On 16 January 2022, six universities signed a pledge agreeing that victims of sexual harassment in universities should no longer be silenced by non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). It was wholeheartedly supported by Higher Education Minister Michelle Donelan, the National Union of Students and Universities UK, who claim to be the “collective voice” of 140 universities.

By 16 March, two months later, only 42 universities had signed the pledge which is held on the Can’t Buy My Silence website. It is difficult to think of anything simpler than committing to collective action on an issue of this type. Perhaps the reasons lie in the self-interest of a sector where a BBC News investigation in 2020 found nearly a third of universities had used NDAs for student grievances in a four-year period.

Back in 2020 there was pressure to stop the use of ‘conditional unconditional’ offers, with the higher education minister, the Office for Students and the National Union of Students agreeing they put students under undue pressure.

The practice was banned by the Office for Students from July 2020 to September 2021 and, following a Universities UK review, a new Fair Admissions Code of Practice was launched in March 2022. Despite the fanfare, the code is not compulsory and at the present time there is no indication on the websites of either Universities UK or co-developers GuildHE of who has signed up.

As recently as February 2022, the higher education minister had written to the University of Portsmouth, which continues to defend the use of such offers.

It is difficult to see that a code of conduct demonstrating the “higher education sector’s commitment to fair and transparent admissions practices” should be a matter of debate or contention. However, some in the sector stand by their option to secure competitive or other advantages by resisting uniform regulation or action in the interests of students.

Suspending links with universities significantly controlled by the Russian government, eradicating NDAs that silence victims of sexual harassment, and not agreeing to stop using conditional unconditional offers are obviously quite different examples. However, it is difficult to resist the argument that, even under situations where the free world’s “safety and stability” is at stake, the UK higher education sector needs to be told what to do.

It would seem better if they worked out how to act as a collective before they find patience wearing thin and face a more direct approach to their decision-making.

Alan Preece is an expert in global education, business transformation and operational management and runs the blogging site View from a Bridge.

Time To Lead

It’s been a week where the situation in Ukraine has gone from bad, to worse, to terrifying.  Written from a distance of several thousand miles that doesn’t even begin to do justice to the lives of the people who are being shelled and bombed on a daily basis.  In the face of such naked aggression the UK higher education sector has let itself down by declining to stand together, let along stand with Ukraine, in stopping institutional links with Russian universities.

The final straw may be the publication of a statement by the Russian Union of Rectors who describe the invasion and its consequences as “events that excite every citizen of Russia”.  They describe their main duty as being to “to conduct a continuous educational process, to educate patriotism in young people, the desire to help the Motherland” and call on people to “rally around our President”.  Regrettably, the statement suggests that Russian universities have, either by choice or coercion, fallen completely under state control.

Before the autonomous, self-governing institutions of the UK begin to admire themselves and their independence it would be good to consider what the two leading umbrella groups have to say about the issue of severing links.   Prof Colin Riordan, the vice-chancellor of Cardiff University, a member of the Russell Group, told the Guardian that “if the government were to tell his university to cut ties with Russia, it would do so because of the “bigger things at stake”.”  Prof Steve West, the president of the vice-chancellors’ group Universities UK, said, “I think we have to expect science sanctions….what is happening is a challenge on democracy and the safety and stability of the free world.”

Two leading figures recognizing that the future of the “free world” and “bigger things” are at stake but without the moral fibre, good sense or humanity to ensure that their university groups take a stand.  They would sooner wait for the Government to tell them what to do than to show leadership or act like the independent institutions they are expected to be.  That begins to sound remarkably like the Rectors of the Russian Union waiting for the Government to tell them what statement to make.

The dithering and self-serving went so far that Universities UK had to be prodded to make any sort of statement about the Ukraine crisis and as of Monday 7 March the Russell Group has no statement at all on its website.  The Russell Group claims it “represents 24 leading UK universities. We believe people and ideas are the key to meeting global challenges”.  It seems to me that on this occasion they and their members have failed to either recognize or meet the most obvious and present global challenge before them.

There is plenty of evidence in front of the Russell Group and UniversitiesUK that it is possible to take decisive action in cutting links without their privileged and cloistered worlds falling in.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Warwick, the European Commission, the universities of Germany, Estonia and Lithuania, Russian scientists and science journalists, and many others have expressed their revulsion.  The editor of the Journal of Molecular Structure even very carefully explained how it is possible to sanction institutional links while allowing individual academics to continue participating.

We also know that some institutions are acting with the universities of Aberdeen, St Andrews and Dundee saying they have already cut ties with Russia and Edinburgh is reviewing its investment stake in Sberbank.  In England, unfortunately, the supposedly urgent review of science and innovation ties that George Freeman MP announced with a flourish on 27 February has not yet had an outcome.  Eight days later there is no outcome.

I’d thank all of those who have taken action and those who continue to press their institutions to do the right thing.  Cutting institutional ties is not the same as banning discussions between individual academics or ceasing support for students from Russia both of which should continue with due regard for everyone’s safety.  Neither is it to deny the very real demonstrations against Putin’s Government that have been held in Russia where individuals are literally taking their lives in their hands to stand up for what is right.

But to everything there is a season and it is time to take action in suspending university links before they become normalized under the most oppressive of circumstances.  There will be a time to review whether these sanctions can be lifted and whether they serve any purpose.  We can all hope that is a moment that is not too long in coming.    

CHINA CRISIS FOR US PATHWAYS?

My early January blog on the two big US pathway operators focused on specific examples of INTO University Partnership’s (INTO) pathway problems without similar insights into some of Shorelight’s major partners.  There had been some insights into lacklustre performance at Louisiana State University, Auburn University and the University of Kansas back in October 2019 (Shine a Light on Shorelight) but an update is overdue.  There is also some news from INTO as it confirms new faces in senior management* and some fundamental changes in its relationship with university partners. 

In the US the most significant point is that INTO has become the sole owner of what was established as a joint-venture with St Louis University.  This follows the closure of joint venture operations at Marshall, Washington State and Colorado state over the past two years.  INTO’s annual report does not list any shareholding in the pathway at Hofstra University so it now has only seven joint-venture partnerships in the US.

The big question, given that all of the most recent US announcement from both INTO and Shorelight have been for direct entry partnerships, is whether the bubble has totally burst on pathways.  Without a significant return of students from China it is difficult to see that predominantly graduate growth from India is going to sustain them.  Looking at the way enrollments have panned out in Fall 2021 suggests this could be the direction of travel.

Shorelight Stumble at Auburn And American

American University is generally reputed to be one of the star performers in the Shorelight portfolio but the enrollments reflect the harsh realities of the pandemic.  The numbers indicate that enrollments in Accelerator/Collegiate/PSE courses were already in decline before Fall 2019.  Despite the limited bounceback in overall enrollments to the US reported by Open Doors in Fall 2021 there is no evidence the Shorelight pathways are seeing an upturn.  

Source: American University Office of Institutional Research and Assessment

The story continues when American University’s total Fall enrollments are reviewed.  Separate axis are used to reflect the significant difference in volume between Chinese an Indian students and the only upturn in Fall 2021 was in Indian graduate students (about 10 students more year on year).  The decline in Chinese undergraduates begins the year after the fall in Accelerator/Collegiate decline and suggests the longer term vulnerability that American University has to declining Chinese numbers. 

Source: American University Office of Institutional Research and Assessment

The combined enrollments in the first and second term Global Masters Accelerator at Auburn University shows similar characteristics but with even more significant declines in volume.  Total enrollment has fallen from a peak of 87 in 2017 to just 11 in Fall 2021 with the decline in Chinese students driving the outcome.  Attracting students from India to pathway programs seems unlikely to make up the shortfall. 

Source: Auburn University Office of Institutional Research

Less Spirit at INTO Saint Louis University

Saint Louis University has seen a significant shift in direct enrollment graduate numbers in 2021 with Indian students outnumbering those from China.  This does not, however, go far enough to counterbalance the decline in Chinese undergraduates over the past five enrollment years.  Evidence from other INTO pathway operations has shown that this plays out even more dramatically at pathway level because Indian graduate students generally have less need of the services provided.

Source: Saint Louis University Office of Institutional Research

INTO St Louis (INTO SLU) was first established as a joint venture in September 2017, becoming, at the time, the seventh INTO partner in the US.  Between the financial reporting in 2018 and 2020 the debt owed by the joint venture to INTO had grown from £1.8m to £3.5m and the current circumstances suggest there is little likelihood of it being repaid in the near future.  If pathways are not enrolling sufficient students they quickly become unviable and need significant financial support from parent organizations.  

INTO’s most recent Annual Report is coy on the matter and simply reports that “subsequent to the year end INTO’s shareholding in INTO SLU LLC increased to 100%”.  Having lost three pathways in recent years there was probably little appetite for losing another partner. The upswing in interest from Indian students may have tipped the balance to continue a pathway while getting exclusive rights for direct enrollment of international students.

Overall, INTO’s US operations all appear to be increasingly indebted to them with even USF slipping from creditor to debtor in the most recent report and accounts.  While it is reasonable to expect new businesses to take a while to get into profit INTO hasn’t opened a joint venture in the US since Illinois State University in 2018 since when the total level of indebtedness across all US operations has nearly doubled from £18m to £35m.

Source: INTO University Partnership Annual Reports***

The most recent accounts for INTO Illinois State University LLC (INTO ISU) make quite interesting reading with the financial deal including a Promissory Note with INTO North America which allows borrowing up to $6m in operating capital with an interest rate of 6%.  Another number that catches the eye is that marketing expenses were an eye watering 77% of tuition revenue. The pandemic caused the LLC to cease operations for a period of up to 23 months, effective August 1, 2020 (the “Deferment Term”) and it will be interesting to see what happens next.

China Crisis for Pathways?

It is no secret that the early growth of pathways in the US owed an enormous amount to English Language scholarship students from Saudi Arabia and the acceleration of incoming students from China.  As numbers of the former fell away pathways became increasingly reliant on the latter which made the COVID-19 situation particularly difficult.  The $64 million dollar (sic) (and maybe more) question is whether the future will see a significant return to those pre-pandemic conditions.

Looking on the bright side might involve pointing to the growth in Chinese undergraduate applicants to the UK (up 12% year on year in January 2022) for entry later this year.  A more negative view might be reflected in the range of reasons summed up in “How Washington’s hawkish China policy alienates young Chinese”.  Optimists could point to the recent ending of the “crackdown on Chinese research ties” while pessimists would suggest that the countries are “locked in a stalemate”.

Back in 2014, Peggy Blumenthal, a 30-years at IIE and a senior counselor to its then president, Allan Goodman, discussed the underlying issues with Science magazine and its worth a look.   China had devoted significant resources to build graduate capacity, more of the professors had been trained in the US and Europe, and even at that time “the added value of a U.S. graduate degree has shrunk in relation to a comparable Chinese degree…for the vast majority of Chinese students.”  It’s arguable that the quality of Chinese universities has increased further and that there has been little to significantly increase the lure of a Western degree.

What is also clear is that, as discussed in a recent blog, 2022 is likely to be the first year that all four major recruiting companies are competing effectively at the same time and there have been a number of increasingly powerful entrants to add to the mix.  There seems every likelihood of continuing international tensions and the potential for students to be “weaponized” by their home government as a form of economic and cultural sanction.

The most prestigious universities in traditional recruiting countries have little need to worry but the early signs from Fall 2021 are not particularly encouraging for universities or pathway operators that have relied on Chinese students paying high fees.  While the growth of graduate students from India might provide some direct recruitment solace for universities this is not going to resolve the issues facing the pathway sector.  Shorelight appears to have already set its sights on building a direct recruitment portfolio of institutions over and above any pathway interest but since the University of Arizona announcement in June 2020 INTO appears to have no obvious sense of direction to face the changing market dynamics.

Notes

*Tom Hands has recently joined as Chief Recruitment Officer. He has previously worked in recruitment positions for Study Group, Navitas and Kaplan. Namrata Sarmah joined at the end of 2021 as Chief Product Officer having previously been Senior Director of Product at ViacomCBS

**As ever, research is presented in good faith but with a recognition that classifications of courses can be complex. I am happy to receive any authoritative corrections (with explanations) and would record them as notes on this blog.

***A review on 1 September 2022 showed that the INTO University Partnerships Annual Reports for 2020 and 2021 carry different figures in reporting of debtor information for INTO Washington State University and INTO Illinois State University. In the Report to July 31 2020 the debtor levels are shown as £3.156m and £5.438m respectively while in the Report to July 31 2021 (which shows the prior year as a comparison alongside the current year) the debtor levels are shown as £1.873m and £3.365m respectively. The July 31 2021 Report appears to make this change due to a prior year restatement and the graph has been adjusted to reflect that. This does not alter the explanatory text in the paragraph immediately before the graph.

India Stealing a March on China for UK Universities

Back in March 2021 my blog considered the way that shifts in recruitment volumes between India and China could have a significant impact for higher education institutions.  The release of the latest HESA statistics by UK institution have borne out the hypothesis.  Building on another theme they also suggest that the value of league tables as a recruitment aid will rapidly diminish as students from strengthening recruitment markets ignore UniVanity rankings to pursue value and employment opportunities.

Between 2019/20 and 2020/21 the total number of students from India recorded by HESA was 84,555, an increase of 29,090 year on year. 54% of the increase (15,616) went to just 13 universities.  Those ‘full offering’ universities growing by over 1,000 year on year to 2020/21 were all in the top ten for growth from 2018/19 to 2019/21.  BPP University’s growth was noted last year and is included in the table below to emphasise the importance of institutions who position themselves as “building careers through education”.

 Volume growth 2019/20 to 2020/21Volume growth 2018/19 to 2019/20
University of Hertfordshire23551575
Ulster University20401230
University of East London15051710
BPP University14851640
The University of Central Lancashire11851180
Coventry University1030810

A couple of interesting features in the year-on-year comparisons is that the biggest year on year loser of students from India at -455 is De Montfort University (DMU) while Leicester University, in the same city, grew by 780.  This could be a policy-led decision by De Montfort under its relatively new leadership or it might be that private recruitment partner Navitas has been able to help Leicester dominate over DMU’s pathway provider Oxford International Education Group.  In another snippet of pathway related detail Study Group registered a loss of 595 students year on year from China while growing numbers from India by 230.

As in the previous years Russell Group universities made very little headway in increasing their numbers from India with the University of Glasgow’s +200 looking to be top of the pile.  But unlike the previous year numbers from China have fallen away significantly for some.  The table below shows the top ten for volume growth in the previous year compared to the latest HESA figures.

 Volume growth 2019/20 to 2020/21Volume growth 2018/19 to 2019/20
Edinburgh9951410
Leeds-3351235
Southampton-4451190
Sheffield4001150
UCL29751065
Manchester2115885
Birmingham-430860
Newcastle-385855
Kings College1460725
Nottingham-750725

This reinforces the potential for changes in recruitment markets making significant differences to the potential of individual universities to invest for the future.   A stark example of this might be Nottingham where the Russell Group University of Nottingham (UN) lost 750 students from China and had 75 fewer from India – a net loss of 825.  Nottingham Trent University (NTU) saw numbers from China decline by 95 but those from India up by 140.

At one level this could be an interesting test for private pathway partner Kaplan who service both universities.  But more fundamentally level its worth reflecting that NU’s tuition fee for a Management PGT degree is £24,500 compared to NTU’s £18,000.  As a value proposition it may be that the extra 36% on the price is simply not justifiable to a student who is self-funding.  It is also reasonable to consider that UN’s decline in Chinese enrollments may be a feature of individuals choosing not to transfer from the campus in China during COVID and may right itself in time.          

It seems difficult to argue that the driving force of the India market is not going to have a growing impact on the UK higher education scene.  Universities that have long relied on their historical status and ranking to persuade wealthy, brand conscious students to enrol may find that self-funded students whose main ambition is to work in the UK after studying are less easy to lure.  Price points and graduate outcomes could become far more powerful signals than whether the THE, QS and AWUR algorithms choose to favour the rich, old and elitist.    

UniVanity League Table

Unveiling a new league table and asking people to look is a bit like extolling the virtues of a spare tyre.  It’s not needed for any functional purpose, takes up space that could be used for better purposes and does not assist with current performance.  Little wonder that about 30% of new cars don’t have one and something of surprise that university league tables continue to proliferate with the support and knowing glances of institutions that should know better.

The UniVanity League Table emerges from a review of the 141 institutional strategic plans and home pages of universities who are members of UUK.  The table reflects a mixture of fact at a point in time, a scoring system* laced with bias, and an entirely personal component to replicate those well-established rankings that rely on questionnaire responses.  It’s a similar methodology (or ‘mythology’ as a US News and World Report ex-editor told Malcolm Gladwell) to many of the major league tables.  

53 of 141 institutions reviewed used rankings from major league tables** on their home page but, the UniVanity Table focuses on 27 who state that achieving a ranking, either explicitly or implicitly in a main league table, is a strategic objective.  Elevating pursuit of rankings to this level looks, in many cases, like a vanity project and is certainly a distraction from the core business of a university.  If fox-hunting is the ‘unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’, chasing rankings may be considered the insecure in pursuit of the unnecessary.        

Readers can be assured that this table, unlike most others, is made available without advertising from institutions and will not be developed or exploited for commercial gain or to build a database of students, parents, agents or government officials who might look at it.  A celebratory event may be held if a sufficient number of universities are willing to invest their scarce resources to buy a table of ten at an appropriately salubrious London venue where they can eat, drink and dance the night away.

UNIVANITY LEAGUE TABLE 2022

UniversityStated AimScore
Southamptontop 10 UK and towards a top 50 internationally26
Bristolfirmly established among the world’s top-50 universities (draft)23
DurhamThe Times/Sunday Times League Tables Top 522
Queen’s Belfasttop 175 in global league tables21
Birminghamwithin the top 50 global institutions in the leading international tables20
PlymouthTop 30 in national league tables Top 250 in international ranking20
Manchesterin the top 25 in leading international rankings18
Glasgow CaledonianAnnual improvement in Impact Rankings score18
Lancasterprogress towards a top 100 position in key global rankings14
East Anglia as a top 20 university in all of the main UK university league tables14
Essextop 25 Times Good University Guide..top 200 Times Higher Education World Rankings14
Liverpoolamong the top 20 UK universities in the world rankings14
Central LancashireLeague table ranking (Guardian, Times, GUG)14
Heriot WattWorld University ranking top 25013
West of Scotlandrecognised as a world leading university ranked inside the top 20013
CardiffUK top 20 in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide..world top 200..QS World University Rankings..TimesHigher Education World University Rankings, the Academic Ranking  of World Universities and the Best Global Universities Ranking, and in the top 100 of at least one of these12
CityTop 20 in the Times and Sunday Times University League Table11
West LondonKPI – Aggregate League table position Top 5011
SolentTimes Higher Education Impact Rankings Top third of rankings11
Surreyreaching the top 200 in THE and QS, and the top 300 in ARWU8
HuddersfieldTop 300 Times and QS World University Rankings8
Liverpool John Mooresreputation reflected in..THE WUR: performance of disciplines in Times and Sunday Times8
South Bankbeing in the top 500 QS and THE rankings8
Newcastle global Top 100 as measured by at least one of the main university rankings7
Royal College of Artnumber 1 for art and design in the QS World University Rankings. The College will occupy the same position in 20217
Buckingham New80th or better in aggregate across league tables5
Stirlingone of the top 25 universities in the UK4

You had one eye in the mirror**

Russell Group universities dominate the table with all top five places and nine of the overall positions which suggests that they feel a real need for external validation.  It’s a reminder of the old McKinsey hiring dictum to recruit people who are “smart…driven by their insecurity;and..competitive”.  Institutions that are in a club claiming to be for the “UK’s leading research-focused universities” should probably feel more comfortable in their quality.     

The Group has always been slightly ambivalent about league tables with various press releases making the point that “League tables shouldn’t be used in isolation to make judgements about the quality of an institution..” (2015) and  “Ranking universities is fraught with difficulties..” (2014).  Perhaps it is the division in the views of the members themselves that has caused the Group to be silent on the issue in recent years.  It is also something that Universities UK seems to steer well clear of with a search showing no comments on rankings and league tables at all.

Well you’re where you should be all the time

Tom Peter’s book What Gets Measured Gets Done borrowed the phrase from what he considers the soundest piece of management advice he ever heard, which is why it matters when universities elect to chase specific league table targets.  With many strategic plans reaching a decade into the future it is just possible that the real driver is the ease with which current management can make supposedly visionary statements with no accountability for delivery.  There is also a good deal of fudging of the actual measurement leaving future reporting to decide which table to report against.

Durham University’s strategy set a target to be Top 5 in the Times/Sunday Times league table by 2027 which could reflect that this is a much easier set of parameters to manage than the THE World Rankings where the institution’s position dropped from 96 to 162 from 2017 to 2022. 

Liverpool takes a more nuanced stance in wanting to achieve “a UK top 20 worldwide ranking in a recognised international league table by 2026.”  At one level this suggests that it is content to see its global position decline as long as other UK universities see the same or greater decline in their position.  In the THE World Rankings the university was 25th in the UK and its overall world position had fallen from 158 to 178 since 2017.

Birmingham has made some progress but is falling some way short of its stated ambition of “..ranking within the top 50 global institutions in the leading international tables”.  Since 2017, they have moved from 130 to 105 in the THE but have fallen from 79 to 90 in the QS rankings since 2019 and have been becalmed in the 101-150 ranking of AWRU for the last five years.  The timescale for achieving top 50 is 2030 but the incoming Vice Chancellor must be wondering how the growing strength of other countries will mitigate against further progress.

The great shame is that each university has a Strategic Plan that is choc full of ideas, creativity, energy and brilliant stories of how they intend to make students, the economy and the world better off.  These are good reasons that holding the institutions sense of worth, progress and well being ransom to a vainglorious punt on league tables makes so little sense. 

You Gave Away the Things You Loved

Reviewing over 140 university Strategic Plans is a reminder of the transformative power that institutions have and the tradition of diversity, quality and excellence that they offer.  It reminded me of Sir Howard Newby, then chief executive of HEFCE,  commenting that, “I think the English – and I do mean the English – do have a genius for turning diversity into hierarchy..”.  Perhaps the league table compilers play on this genius to tempt universities into trading instincts for collaboration and cooperation for a system that encourages game playing and one upmanship.

Whatever the reason, the willingness to be judged by external forces seems contrary to the notion of universities as autonomous, self-governing institutions.  The sector has, over time, grumbled mightily about REF, teaching quality framework, NSS and others, so willingly paying homage at the altar of QS, THE, AWUR et al seems out of character.  It is reasonable to measure progress but there are many more targeted mechanisms for determining performance.

By engaging so actively and giving prominence to league tables, universities are also giving significant opportunities for the commercialization of data from potential students.  It is another example of a sector which is struggling to come to terms with the reality that for many organizations education has become just another business opportunity.  External investment and for-profit organizations are very welcome where they serve the interests of students, research and teaching but the sector should act collectively to prevent exploitation and ensure that it receives a reasonable slice of any revenue being generated.  

Notes

* The final score is generated from six categories.  These are: mention (explicit or implicit) of ranking/tables as a measure of performance in the strategic plan; whether the strategic plan was downloadable/easily searchable; how many years are left on the plan; whether rankings were mentioned on the university homepage; Russell Group membership and; whether the compiler had visited the campus and enjoyed the experience.

**’main league table’ generally refers to those published by Times Higher Education, QS Quacquarelli Symonds, or Academic World University Ranking by Shanghai Rankings or in the UK by major national newspapers or the Complete University Guide.

***Sub-headings are, aptly, from You’re So Vain, a song by Carly Simon and released in 1972. It topped the charts in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and sparked years of speculations as to its subject. Simon has gone as far as to say that the song is about three men and Warren Beatty is one (verse two). Separately, she said the ‘apricot scarf’ was worn by American writer, Nick Delbanco.

****If any of the universities listed feel I have misunderstood the intention of their strategic plan or referred to an incorrect/out of date version I will be happy to receive authoritative corrections and note them on this blog.

Advising the Advisers

Advisory boards have a long history and can be genuine forces for industry insight, expert advice and sound counsel.  As we have seen with Theranos and Enron they can also be stacked full of notable and well respected names to provide comfort to outsiders without much impact on management behaviour. With private money flooding into edtech there seems to have been an increase in advisory appointments and it is to be hoped that they will bring benefits to universities and students. 

Recent developments at ApplyBoard, THE Student and LeverageEdu and longer standing arrangements, bring higher education insiders firmly alongside commercial organizations that are trying to grow their business in higher education. Motives will differ but there is always a degree of flattery in being singled out as a “thought leader” and invited to join a group of colleagues to give your opinion without having any responsibility for delivery.  Those with an authoritative voice in education circles might also argue that influencing, or learning from, a commercial organization engaged with the sector is always a good thing. 

For the commercial partner there are clear benefits to being closely associated with reputable individuals. This is particularly so where the very presence of their names on the website, or at events and making introductions, brings instant credibility.  It can sometimes go wrong but rarely turns into the public resignation crises encountered by Pride in London, the UK’s Science Museum, or software company Afiniti. 

Whatever the purpose of the appointment it would seem to be in the interests of the adviser, the commercial entity and industry stakeholders to make the terms of engagement transparent. Advisers might also consider flagging their role at any event where the subject comes up and confirming whether it reflects any opinion on the merit of one commercial organization over its competitors. The Advisory Board Centre (which appears to operate mainly across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore) also has some interesting reading on the subject.

Apply Carefully

The stated purpose of the ApplyBoard UK advisory board is to “guide and support ApplyBoard’s expansion within the United Kingdom”. Recent ApplyBoard advisory appointee, Prof Sir Steve Smith, was billed in his role UK Government International Education Champion when he presented at a recent ApplyBoard event described as a “closed door briefing” for UK vice chancellors.    It’s entirely possible the advisory role was announced or well known to the audience but they might legitimately wonder if his role implies any views about the company’s market position compared to commercial competitors. 

Two other recent appointees to this advisory board have roles with HEPI*, which has long positioned itself as the “UK’s only independent think tank devoted to higher education”.   One industry commentator described the new board members as “smart cookies along with £3bn betting on AB and you are betting against it, you braver than I!” (sic). It will be interesting to watch how praise or criticism is allocated in any HEPI articles** about the role of aggregators and whether there will be an appetite to consider the policy questions around possible regulation.

Slice of the Pie

LeverageEDU recently announced the addition of the CEO and founder of PIE News to its advisory board. There is one other advisory member, Karan Khemka, formerly of EY Parthenon and now a portfolio board member and investor, who is also a Director of agent aggregator Adventus.  The PIE has published extensively on the aggregator community and announced Khemka’s appointment but its own CEO’s new role doesn’t appear to have been important enough to make even the “movers” section of the publication. 

Oversight or Oversight?

THE Student’s global student advisory board has gone the route of appointing individuals with roles in universities. The Chair of the Board says (of edtech) that “it’s vital that the university sector has oversight of this newly emerging field”.  There would be a lot of agreement on that but, unless there is some undeclared governance aspect, an advisory board doesn’t usually provide oversight or binding advice.

The board has representatives from several parts of the world but one of the biographies on the website is already out of date.  David Pilsbury is shown as Deputy Vice Chancellor, International at Coventry University, a role he left in June 2021, and he is now Chief Development Officer at Oxford International Education Group.  In the interests of transparency it seems reasonable to expect that Advisory Board profiles are kept up to date.

A Portal to Misinformation

The relative newness of the THE board may save it from an even poorer showing at StudyPortals where four of the nine members of the UK Advisory Board have moved on from the positions described on the website.  Andrew Didsbury left the University of West Scotland in January 2019; Ken Gill left NCUK in May 2019; Dr Sonal Minocha is now a Professor and left Bournemouth in December 2018; and; Dr David Pilsbury (the same one as on the THE Board), left Coventry University in June 2021.  If students are reassured that Study Portals is taking advice from an Advisory Board entirely made up of stalwarts from UK universities they are sadly mistaken.

Most of those moving have gone on to roles in commercial roles. Didsbury has become President UK at MSquare Media which describes itself as a “leading global service provider and international education platform”; Pilsbury is Chief Development Officer at Oxford International Education Group and Minocha is Chief Academic Officer and Co-CEO at a yet to be announced edtech venture.  Worth adding here that MSquare Media has a UK and Europe Advisory Board with eight external worthies from UK universities and the British Council – the biographies look totally up to date.

Pathways to Confusion

Senior university figures engaging with commercial entities have a particular need to ensure that their role is not misunderstood and Professor Sir David Eastwood’s appointment with INTO University Partnerships (IUP) may offer some lessons.  After becoming VC of the University of Birmingham in 2009 he became a Director of IUP in 2014, but when the university UCU union branch asked in 2018 why this interest was not declared during discussions on student recruitment, he was re-classified by the university as “non-executive” director of IUP.  The UK’s Institute of Directors state that “there is no legal distinction between executive and non-executive directors”.

There appears to be no recorded comment on motivations for taking the post or what benefit the University got from the appointment but it must be assumed that the appropriate university authorities gave approval.*** Eastwood is due to have a statue honouring him erected on the Birmingham campus when he retires later this year and currently holds 258000 C Ordinary Shares in IUP.  His current profile on the university website describes him “a Board Member and Non-Executive Director of INTO University Partnerships” while IUP’s pages describe him as a Board Director.

Slippery Pole or Path to Glory

The worthiest and most high-minded motives can be misunderstood and it is reasonable to know whether people, particularly those in positions of power and influence, have any personal stake in a cause they are discussing.  The contemporary debate in the UK about MPs having second jobs or using their position to lobby for commercial organizations is not directly equivalent but reflects the risks caused by uncertainty over motives and rewards.  As Warren Buffett reminds us, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

NOTES

Material presented in this blog reflects publicly available information with the links given checked in the period up to 3 December 2021.  If there are any errors or misrepresentations they will be amended on receipt of authoritative and documented evidence.  Individuals who wish to clarify the nature of their agreement, including any benefits received or anticipated, with the commercial company mentioned will have that information added to this blog.      

* HEPI is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity and “aim to be transparent in our funding”.  Broadly 45% of income comes from HE institutions, 30% from corporate partners, 15% from events and the rest from co-sponsored projects.

** HEPI’s work is guided by an Advisory Board appointed by the Trustees.  The Board’s role is “only to give advice to the Director”

US Rebound, Pathway Woes and A World of Opportunity

Watching the gyrations of international recruitment as the pandemic, global tensions and the rise of online opportunities work their way through the sector is enough to make anyone slightly queasy.  There is still plenty to play for and with Australia looking ready to re-enter the fray in 2022 it is going to be a fascinating ride.  But for now it’s time to digest the latest Open Doors figures and have a small look under the hood to see what might be happening in the pathway sector.

The Open Doors press release trumpeted 914,095 international students for the 2020/21 academic year which was a 15% decline year on year.  But the inclusion of OPT (203,885) and non-degree students (21,151) doesn’t make a reasonable comparison with some other countries and when you strip them out the UG and Graduate student number is 689,069 – a 13% decline on the previous year.  The 45.6% year on year decline in new student enrollment becomes a slightly more palatable 39.9% with the removal of non-degree students.

But the real excitement was around the bounceback in the 860 university snapshot survey conducted by the Institute of International Education (IIE).  This suggested that new international students enrollments grew by 68% year on year to Fall 2021.  The obvious point to make is that if 2020/21 international student enrollment (including non-degree) was 145,528 then a 68% increase would take it to 244,487 which is still a lower new student intake than any year since 2011.

It’s good news that several US universities provide open and near contemporaneous access to detailed levels of information on international student recruitment which allows us to look under the hood and down to the pathway level.  It’s a state of affairs that Canada, the UK and Australia (which goes some of the way) should think of emulating.  Meanwhile, Fall 2021 updates from INTO University Partnerships (IUP) partners Oregon State University and George Mason University show how tough some are still finding things at direct and pathway levels.

Oregon State University (OSU)

IUP’s corporate website has an encouraging graph which shows the OSU international student growth story all the way up to 2019/20 so a visual moving the picture forward to Fall 2021 seems a helpful contribution.  The deterioration in undergraduate numbers is particularly evident as the university’s total enrollment falls to near 2012 levels and 2021 shows a further decline of 10% from 2020.  A wider consideration going forward may be that if there is a shift in major source countries the balance of UG to graduate enrollments may change for all universities with significant consequences for year on year stability.

Source: Oregon State University Institutional Research Office  

The situation for the INTO pathway operation at OSU is even more stark.  From a high point in 2014 the trend has been almost wholly downwards with a 78.7% decline in enrollments to 319 in 2021.  While the early stages of decline were in Academic English the most recent shrinkage has been in the core undergraduate and postgraduate intakes.

Source: Oregon State University Institutional Research Office  

INTO George Mason University (INTO GMU)

INTO GMU saw reasonable growth in its first two years and peaked at an enrollment of 387 in 2016.  Five years of decline has seen the 2021 intake down to 96 – a 75.2% fall from the peak with graduate and undergraduate numbers following similar paths.  INTO University Partnerships (IUP) July 2020 accounts show that INTO GMU’s level of debt to IUP had grown from £566k to £1.896m so it will be interesting to see how the 2021 annual report looks.

Source: GMU Office of Institutional Research and Reporting

To be fair and reasonable the announcement of the deal between IUP and GMU anticipated that the venture would add 1,000 international students to the university over five years.  In Fall 2014 the university’s census recorded a headcount of 2,136 non-resident aliens on GMU’s US campuses and by Fall 2019 that had risen to 3,247 so the original mission was accomplished.  The numbers for the pathway suggest that direct recruitment will have helped that along and tracking what happens next will be fascinating.

It’s difficult not to note that IUP, the pioneer of joint venture pathways, has had a bumpy few years with partnerships in the UK and US falling by the wayside.  Executive chairman, John Latham left the business on 31 October after being at IUP since April 2016 and just a few months after new Chief Executive, Olivia Streatfeild, was appointed around June this year.  INTO the Great Wide Open suggested some of the strategic issues the business faces with the suggestion that it “needs to establish some renewed momentum if it is to fulfil the promise of its early days of innovation, creativity and energy.”

Outside, the CEO and Chief Recruitment Officer, the IUP leadership team has been in place for five years or longer.  It’s a period that has seen six joint ventures close, three in the US and three in the UK, with little to match the growth of Shorelight in the US, no new UK partners and the recent addition of University of Western Australia in beleaguered Australia.  There are plenty of adjustments in the financial reporting but one measure of performance might be Total Comprehensive Income at Group level which looks to have moved from £8m to £12m over the period.

With the US and UK governments setting out to support ambitious growth targets and a reawakening of student mobility there should be good opportunities for nimble operations with a good foothold in key markets to move forward.  New operators and established companies, particularly in the UK, are showing that universities are still looking for support and Shorelight’s recent announcement of partnership with Austin College suggests there are opportunities in the US.  To borrow from Sherlock Holmes “the game’s afoot” but whether the answer is “elementary” remains to be seen.

Note: The data is gathered from public sources and referenced as necessary. In the event that there is a misinterpretation or error I am always happy to make amendments if approached with appropriate, verifiable information from an authoritative source.

Keep Your Virtue*…Ignore the Reputation Rankings

If Government took an “experienced, published” scholar and said they would have to spend the next 21 years working only on a vanity project, the higher education community would be outraged at the waste of time, intellect and potential.  But that’s what the THE Reputation Rankings 2021 appear to be doing by having around 11,000 such scholars submitting views on which other universities are good at research and teaching.  It’s only the beginning of the problem for another dreary day in the self-interested world of the rankers.

We are told that academics are hard-pressed and facing mental burnout but that doesn’t stop the THE taking their valuable time to seek opinions about other institutions.  If each of the 10,963 respondents spent half a working day on their submission that would be 5,481 days.  Dividing that by 260 working days a year (a five-day working week times 52 with no holidays) suggests THE may have taken more than two decades of academic time away from scholarship that could save humanity.

Twisted by Knaves to Make a Trap for Fools

Despite, or perhaps because of, all that effort it comes as a yawn inducing revelation that the top five in 2021 are exactly the same universities as the top five in both 2020 and 2019.  The procession of Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, Oxford and Stanford – placed alphabetically here because the whole notion of ranking them seems ludicrous – continues.  In a world where the purpose of higher education, its value and its relevance are all under question this parade of hierarchy seems irrelevant.  

I wonder how Harvard’s reputation really looks to people who agree with Scott Galloway that higher education is becoming “the enforcer of a caste system” where “elite institutions no longer see themselves as public servants”.  Or Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University, when he says that HE is increasingly a system “where status is derivative of exclusion”.  Or to those who have listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s forensic dissection of the US News rankings, where he notes that they are “a self-fulfilling prophecy”.

There should also be an enquiry into the fact that California Institute of Technology (CalTech) is only placed at 14 in the Reputation Rankings.  On THE Student the compilers are telling thousands of candidates that CalTech is the best university in the US,  QS rank it at 6 in the world, it’s number 9 in US News and number 2 in the THE’s own World Rankings.  There are several other examples illustrating inconsistencies which confirm that the whole exercise isn’t really about understanding or reflecting excellence.

One might guess that the opportunity to reach out and flatter 10,963 potential readers and event attendees by asking for their opinion is a primary motivator of the approach taken.  But for THE to then claim the rankings are “based on the opinions of those who truly know” seems typically hyperbolic and ill-founded.  Donald A. Norman is quoted as saying – “academics get paid for being clever, not for being right” – which is an alternative view worth considering.  

Fill the Unforgiving Minute  

The 21-year estimate of time does, of course, presume that the academics involved took the weighty task of considering the reputational implications for thousands of their colleagues at thousands of universities seriously.  Half a day hardly seems long enough to do the job properly but some cynics might suggest that it was more likely half-an-hour over a cup of coffee.  Plenty of time to see scores settled, biases reinforced and best friends rewarded. 

Even half an hour for each submission would be about two-and-a-half years of time stolen from saving the world and brings equally good questions about the value of the exercise.  Each academic submitted around 14 names on average which which, in 30 minutes, means they would take about two minutes to weigh and consider each nomination.  It’s less time and attention than most people spend on selecting their top ten favourite party records for the Christmas playlist.  

Make Allowance for their Doubting Too

The reputation rankings methodology** specifically gives “more weight to research”.  This is not because research is intrinsically more important but because “our expert advisers have suggested that there is greater confidence in respondents’ ability to make accurate judgements about research quality”.  It is interesting to read that THE’s advisers thinks academics can’t really be trusted to review the teaching quality of their peers. 

Pity the poor student who believe the Reputation Rankings have much to do with the teaching they might receive.  The methodology places a premium on the score for research reputation of 2:1 over the score for teaching reputation.  This gives some idea of the importance that THE attributes to teaching in establishing an institution’s standing and the extent to which academics are contributing to perceptions about their priorities.

One Heap of All Your Winnings

It also seems that the eventual ranking is driven as much by volume as by quality.  Respondents are asked to simply name, rather than rank, up to 15 institutions which are best at research and teaching) in their specific subject discipline.  But the number one institution “is the one selected most often” as being one of the best in its field.

It doesn’t seem to matter if the twenty most eminent researchers in each field believes your university is the best.  You will not be top if enough other “experienced, published” researchers pick the place where they are angling for a job, enjoy to visit or where the overlord of research is a personal friend.  There is no indication in the methodology that there is a weighting to account for the ability of the respondents to make or offer a well-informed judgement.

Or Being Lied About Don’t Deal In Lies

However, there are adjustments to ensure that the ranking represents the global distribution of scholars.  Participants are selected randomly from Elsevier’s SCOPUS database which can presumably create a sample in line with the global distribution of academics.  As responses do not reflect the UNESCO distribution of scholars so they have to be weighted.   

Engineering overperformed with 15.8% of respondents and had to be levelled down to a weighted 12.7% while Business and Economics and Arts and Humanities had to be levelled up from 8.2% and 7.7% of respondents to 13.1% and 12.5% respectively.  Maybe it’s just that engineers like questionnaires and giving their opinion but it would be nice to think that some scholars are too dismissive of the process to join in.

If the argument is that the Reputation Rankings are only a game and for entertainment then academics might consider how wise it is to be wasting their time on something as meaningful as voting on The X-Factor or Dancing With the Stars.  But if it is intended to inform politicians, funders, philanthropists and business about quality it carries the danger of reinforcing bias while devaluing other institutions, and their students.  Next time the email from THE pops up in the inbox it might be a good moment to press delete and get on with doing something important. 

NOTES

*Part of the title and all the sub-heading are fragments from Rudyard Kipling’s wonderful and inspirational poem ‘If’

** The page of description of the methodology is, in my view, neither clear or well written. I would be happy to clarify or correct any areas where my interpretation or understanding is incorrect on the advice of an authoritative source.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay