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World-Class Universities or World Class Systems?: Rankings and Higher Education Policy Choices

In today’s world, it has become all too familiar for policymakers and higher education leaders to identify and define their ambitions and strategies in terms of a favourable global ranking for their universities/university. But, is it always a good thing for a university to rise up the rankings and break into the top 100? How much do we really know and understand about rankings and what they measure? Do rankings raise standards by encouraging competition or do they undermine the broader mission of universities to provide education? Can rankings measure the quality of higher education? Should students use rankings to help them choose where to study? Should rankings be used to help decide education policies and the allocation of scarce resources? Are rankings an appropriate guide for employers to use when recruiting new employees? Should higher education policies aim to develop world-class universities or to make the system world-class? This chapter discusses the rising attention accorded to global rankings and their implications for higher education. It is divided into five parts. Part one explores the growing importance accorded to rankings; part two discusses what rankings measure; part three asks whether rankings measure what counts; and part four reflects on how the use and abuse of rankings are influencing policy choices. Finally, part five addresses a key policy question: should governments focus on building the capacity of a few world-class universities or on the capacity of the higher education system-as-whole, in other words, building a world-class higher education system?