Global University Rankings

Global university rankings enable a comparison of universities cross-nationally, ranking their performance as measured by specific key indicators and criteria, often in relation to research but also teaching, institutional reputation, and international reach. On one level, they can be a useful tool in making comparisons of universities across different national contexts and enabling student choice in an era of increased international student mobility. Many critics argue, however, that they have served to create a competitive global arms race amongst universities, where elite ‘world class’ universities prosper at the expense of the wider systems of higher education within nation-states, producing greater inequities within higher education systems globally, including a growing gulf between the global North and the global South.

This entry explains the development and increasing diversity ...