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Broken ladders ?
Why some universities are choosing to snub rankings .
By Dallas Bastian
Rhodes University in South Africa
doesn ’ t throw its own hat in the rankings ring – but that doesn ’ t mean you can ’ t find it there .
Drawing on publicly available data , many rankings bodies slot its name into their league tables , possibly above or below competitors who actively engage with the lists .
So why do so many universities see value in rankings and yet others avoid them ?
Explaining Rhodes ’ aversion to rankings in an article for The Conversation , director of the centre for postgraduate studies at the university , Sioux McKenna , said the methodology underpinning university ranking systems “ would be unlikely to pass as a third-year student ’ s research project ”.
“ And yet high-status universities around the world spend time and money competing in this extravaganza rather than pointing out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes ,” McKenna said .
Beyond reputation and prestige , and the associated marketing opportunities that come with rankings , there might also be stronger ties to international student revenue than once thought .
In 2018 , consultancy firm Studymove held that international student fees at Australian universities had risen in tandem with institutions ’ improvement in QS rankings .
“ It is not a surprise that there is a relationship but it is surprising how strong the correlation is ,” the authors wrote in their report .
They suggested that to international students , the rankings justify the fee hikes . On top of this , rankings readily get media attention – each year , Campus
Review publishes the results of the major rankings players and they sit among our most popular articles . But McKenna said she finds it worrying that the sector is “ held captive by these glitzy spectacles ”.
“ Imagine if a student indicated that their research project would be to develop a ranking of all universities . They would allocate 20 per cent to whether current students and the general public thought the university was prestigious , 5 per cent for the number of Nobel Prize winners on the institution ’ s staff , 30 per cent for the number of research publications , and so on .
“ Any academic advisor would throw the proposal out .
“ Some of these criteria are subjective . The weightings are arbitrary , important aspects of many universities are missing and the averaging of unrelated aspects to a final number is simply poor science which does not tell us much about the institution at all .
“ And yet this is exactly how rankings are determined .”
McKenna isn ’ t the only South African academic concerned with the role rankings play in the higher education sphere .
In an earlier Conversation piece Ahmed Essop , a research associate in higher education policy and planning at the University of Johannesburg , cautioned the country ’ s universities against making rankings their raison d ’ etre .
“ They should focus on building a quality higher education system that is responsive to the challenges that face South Africa in the 21st century ,” Essop said . “ This requires a diverse and differentiated higher education system based on institutional collaboration rather than the market-driven competition that results from participation in global rankings .”
And the South African pair have allies in this stance in Singapore .
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