MIT beats Cambridge and Harvard to top spot in world university rankings
Source: The Guardian
Cambridge has lost its place as the number one ranking university in the world, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the US university that specialises in science and technology, taking over the top slot.
MIT came first, while Cambridge, which topped the list in 2011, came second and Harvard third in the QS World University Rankings, published on Tuesday.
The QS table is based on measures of research quality, graduate employability, teaching and how international the faculties and student bodies are.
University College London, Oxford, Imperial College, Yale, the University of Chicago, Princeton and Caltech, in that order, make up the top 10.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/sep/11/mit-cambridge-harvard-top-university
= new reply since forum marked as read
and isn't that what counts after all ?
OECD education-rankings
http://ourtimes.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/oecd-education-rankings/
US is 14th in reading, 25th in Math and 11th in Science, in a study of 15 year olds in 2011:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading
You have to remember the reason 15 year olds are used as the test base, is that in most of the World, you are either going into or about to be assigned to a High school or a Technical School. Unlike the US, High Schools in most of the rest of the World do NOT include students who end up in Technical Schools (Which tends to be MOST students). Thus to have a good idea of how much students know in Science one has to stop at about age 15. The US and the rest of the world diverge to much after that age to have a good comparison between students in both systems.
The US is #1 in cited papers list, beating out the COMBINED totals of the next three highest countries"
http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php
The above is true, for the US spends more money on research then any other country. Even with that high expenditure on Science only four of the top ten jobs with the highest expected growth, require a Bachelor degree, Two an Associate Degree, the rest "Moderate to short on the job training" (And the single largest job growth is the one with the shortest on the job training"
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You have to drop down to the 13th job with the greatest increase in jobs to find one that require a Master's Degree, and 20th position for the Second (Through the 19th requires a Doctorate, as does the 23rd, the ONLY two jobs in the top 30 to require a Doctorate). The last Job that requires a Master is the 24th job on the list.
Yes, 1/3 of the top 30 jobs requires only a Bachelor degree (10 out of 30). 8 out of 30 requires an Associate degree only. 6 out of the 30, only require on the job training (Plus one that requires a "Post secondary education Award). Leaving, two Doctorates and three masters degrees.
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/11/art5full.pdf
Please note the above is based on Table 2 in the above Report, if we look at actual increase in Jobs, as oppose to percentage change, it is even worse. See Table 3 of that above report HALF of the occupations with the largest expected growth require only short term on the job training (i.e. High School Education for 15 of the 30). Six requires "Moderate on the job training" and one requires "Long term on the Job Training". But that mean 22 of the top occupations with the largest job growth require no more then an high School Education. One job requires a "Postsecondary vocational award". One job requires an Associate degree only, Five requires a Bachelor. The only Doctorate is for a Teacher with a Doctorate.
Table 6 of the same report is even worse, 47.1 % of all jobs for the period 2004-2014 require High School or less in education. only 24.4 % of all jobs require a Bachelor or higher level of education.
In the World's Bank "Knowledge Economy Index" the US is #12, it is a drop from #1 in 1995, but that was due to "The United States KEI position has suffered from a weakening in all 4 pillar indices. Its KEI has fallen from 1st place in 1995 to 4th in 2000 to 12th position in the current 2012 rankings. It remains relatively strong in the innovation pillar (ranked 6th ), buttressed by an exceptionally large number of USPTO patents granted (normalized score of 9.93), science & technical journal articles published (normalized score of 9.1), and high levels of royalty payments and receipts(normalized score of 9.36). However, it currently ranks below the top 10 in all other pillars. Its relatively slower advancement on all 3 ICT indicators has led to the U.S. falling from number 1 in ICT in 1995 to number 18 currently. For example, although its number of telephones per thousand people increased from 1,070 in 2000 to 1,470 in the most recent year, other countries improved even faster. Its normalized score, therefore, actually fell from 8.76 to 6.76. Similarly, its EIR pillar has declined, mainly because of the weakening of its tariff and nontariff barriers indictor.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTUNIKAM/Resources/2012.pdf
i.e. the US has indicated some intention to increase tariffs AND most Americas are happy with just one phone, through over 400 people per 1000 people have to have at least two.
While I found the above, I can NOT find the study that involved the man in the street, not a high School Student, but the average man in the street. In that study the US came out as #1 in Knowledge of Science, due to the US policy of exposing EVERY STUDENT to Science in High School. In other countries, students in Technical Schools are NOT exposed to Science other then what is needed to know in the field they are being trained in.
Sorry, having people more educated then required by the Job they are doing is better then having people under educated for the job their are doing, but the US, as a whole, does a better job educating EVERYONE, then most of the rest of the world. We are falling behind as to the top elite education, but then as many Computer engineers have reported on DU, given that many other countries are willing to pay for collage 100%, and in the US the Student pays for their education, the US Students can NOT compete. How can you pay for your students loans if students from foreign countries can come to the US do the same job for their have the same education BUT do NOT have to pay back any student loans? Thus over the last 20 or more years, less and less Americas are going into advance degrees, they can NOT afford them. Thus you will see a decline in Education until Congress at least acknowledge it is a problem, the problem is Congress has refused to do so. If this trend continues, I foresee it affecting even Bachelor degree programs.
The biggest problem with the above statistics is more often then not, the ranking has to do with something NOT mentioned. For example in the "Knowledge Economy Index" after reading the results, you can see the agenda behind the study was to show which country permitted the freest movement of Capital. The easier Capital could move, the higher on the index you went. THE OCED educational ranking was geared to be more fair to the participates, but clearly had a preference for a system that tracked students as early as possible (i.e. force less knowledgeable students OUT of the High School/Collage Track into the Separate technical School Track).
Thus you have to NOT only read the ranking, but HOW the ranking was done to get a good idea of how "good" or "bad" the schools in a country is. For example in the OCED ranking, the US is shown to be the only country to have over 85% of everyone between the ages of 18 and 34 AND 55 and 65 to have a high school education. Many countries do better then 90%, but only as to 18-34 year olds. People between the ages of 55 and 64 are way below the US total for 18-65 year olds (The Czech Republic MAY beat out the US, but if it does it barely does so).
Just pointing out the US still has the best educated work force in the world, it is no longer the overwhelming advantage it was between 1945 and 1980, but it still exists. If you look at the OECD ranking, the drop in US ranking has more to do with the INCREASE in other countries then a decline in the US education system. How much better can you make the system? Yes, some people will say you can ALWAYS improve the system, the problem is the Law of diminishing returns. i.e. improving education for a group of people who can NOT read and write to one that can read and write will bring a HUGE increase in return on that increase in education but sooner or later how many unemployed PH.ds does it take to show that educating more PHds is NOT worth the investment? If you only need 10 PHds, is it worth educating 100? Think about it. Computer people with bachelors are having a hard time finding employment. Why? The US is letting in Computer people from overseas who are willing to work for less then an American who has to support his or her family AND pay off his or her's student loans. In many ways we have reach the saturation point as to Computer people, not be having to many being educating, but by permitting to many to come into the country and push wages down.
I better quit, I am just rambling on and on, more upset about employment and how neither candidate is addressing the need of the Working Class for what the Working Class needs is opposite of what Wall Street wants.
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