University Rankings Proliferate, Along With New Uses for the Data They Collect

By Aisha Labi. The number of international university rankings continues to grow, transforming a crowded and increasingly controversial field with new methodologies and new uses for rankings and the data compiled to produce them.
A report, "Global University Rankings and Their Impact II," published on Friday by the European University Association, outlines recent developments and trends and is a follow-up to a 2011 report published by the Brussels-based group.
Since the last report, although criticism of rankings has intensified, reliance on them has expanded, and they are increasingly being used to shape institutional and public policy, the report says. The number of rankings has also grown. For the first time last year, for example, both Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli-Symonds, better known as QS, each published a ranking of universities less than 50 years old. The report also singles out a new comparative ranking of 48 national higher-education systems by Universitas 21, an international university network. Read more...