The Finances of World Class Universities (Part 1)

By Alex Usher. We define “world-class universities” as any institution in the top 200 of the 2017 Shanghai Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU).   Our measure of financial clout is expenditures per student, converted to $US at purchasing-power-parity, using the Economist’s “Big Mac index” (yes there are more sophisticated tools out there, but they are usually 2-3 years behind). More...