University Rankings a Warning for Minnesota

By Lee Egerstrom, Economic Development Fellow, September 8, 2011 at 1:29 pm

Hindsight Community Fellow Jake Levy-Pollans recently blogged about the dangers of putting too much stock in university/college rankings. The piece noted that rankings should serve as guides on what to look for in a school, but shouldn't be used as a major basis for what school to choose.

Incidentally, one of the more relevant rankings he pointed to gives a tip of the hat to three Minnesota colleges for their efforts in helping improve the community surrounding the campus.

Along the lines of using rankings as a guide to aid policy decision making comes the Academic Ranking of World Universities (for 2011), compiled by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. It uses criteria highly tilted to research, research awards and publication of such work. It's one Minnesota taxpayers and policymakers should note.

In all, American universities grabbed 17 of the top 25 rankings in the world. Of them, seven major research universities are public institutions in states where current political movements see support of public education and research to be a burden, not an investment in the future.

This included the University of Wisconsin at Madison, next door, which held onto 18th place on the Shanghai list.

Bringing this home, the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities ranked 33rd in the world. Strengths noted under field rankings included economics and business (12th), mathematics (12th), social sciences (12th), and clinical medicine and pharmacy (15th).

Particularly troubling though was the rankings for life and agricultural sciences—long established strengths in Minnesota—where the university was ranked  35th in the world.

All this sounds good, given the world stage. But the university and Minnesota's well-being and economy can't coast on past resarch reputations forever. Continuing cutbacks in higher education and research will harm our economy and our people, and that will be reflected in the Shanghai and other academic rankings in the years ahead.

Posted in Education | Related Topics: Higher Education  University of Minnesota