US University dominance challenged by new ranking

The United States’ dominance of the international university rankings is challenged in the latest edition of U-Multirank released on 4 April.

Supported by the European Commission, U-Multirank claims to be the largest global university ranking and this year looks in detail at the diversity of strengths of more than 1,300 universities from some 90 countries.

While North American universities dominate research performance, the picture is more varied when it comes to knowledge transfer, international orientation, regional engagement, and teaching and learning.

Professor Frans van Vught, U-Multirank’s joint project leader, said: “Among the wealth of data is a set of 10 performance lists showing 25 top-performing universities according to different U-Multirank indicators.

“These show that the long-held esteem for American universities relies on a particularly narrow view of the purpose of higher education.”

Van Vught said 780 universities worldwide were now actively participating in U-Multirank – up from 672 last year. These institutions share their data and information with the project organisers. For other universities, U-Multirank relies on publicly available data.

“For some countries like Spain, Switzerland, Norway and Austria, nearly the whole system is taking part.”

Performance by category

US universities dominate many of the research lists, such as ‘top cited publications’, with Rockefeller University, MIT, Stanford and Harvard outperforming the rest of the world.

But the North Americans don’t have it all their own way.

Germany took the top three spots for ‘co-publications with industrial partners’, with Reutlingen University of Applied Science, Nuremberg Institute of Technology and Munich University of Applied Sciences leading the pack. No US university made the top 25 list for this key knowledge transfer indicator.

American universities were also absent from the two key indicators for international orientation.

European business and management schools took the top 10 slots for inward and outward student mobility, with France’s IESEG School of Management, Lille and the Varna University of Management in Bulgaria leading the pack.

University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt in Austria was the top performer for ‘international joint publications’ followed by the University of Liechtenstein and King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia.

Van Vught told University World News: “A key to U-Multirank is that it highlights how universities in smaller countries often outperform those in larger countries for international orientation. US universities tend to work with one another in their American system.”

While U-Multirank says it is not a league table combining scores to produce overall winners, its lists show top performers for various selected areas.

Unique indicators

Some of these indicators are unique to U-Multirank, says van Vught.

Regional engagement, for example, is judged by a university’s research publications having at least one co-author within 50 kilometres. Here the top performers were Hanze University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in Russia and Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon in Portugal.

Among the indicators for knowledge transfer is income from continuous professional development. The Siberian Institute of Business in Russia led this category, followed by IPAC School of Management, Annecy in France and Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta in Nigeria.

An area of research where the US didn’t dominate was interdisciplinary publications. Institute of Technology Tallaght in Ireland and the China Medical University in Taiwan took the top two spots.

New for 2016

A number of new subject areas have been included in the 2016 edition of U-Multirank to allow comparisons for teaching and learning.

These include mathematics, chemistry and biology and Spain’s University of Barcelona and the University of Lodz in Poland took the top two spots for student-staff ratios.

The 2016 edition of U-Multirank is the third produced by the European Commission-supported consortium led by the Centre for Higher Education in Germany and, in the Netherlands, the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies at the University of Twente and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University.

Van Vught said: “We are happy with the amount of cooperation from universities worldwide. Many are clearly enthusiastic about U-Multirank since it shows individual strengths and profiles and offers a rich database for benchmarking with other institutions.”

UK reluctant to engage

He told University World News that while U-Multirank was getting “closer and closer” to being accepted as the standard for ranking institutions for a variety of indicators on a world scale “there are still countries where we struggle to be fully accepted” and the United Kingdom remains the most difficult country for us to engage.

“We, of course, have all the bibliometric and patent data available on all UK institutions and 48 UK institutions feature in U-Multirank this year. But the number of actively participating UK institutions is still limited compared to many other systems. Last year it was 12, this year it is 13.”

Van Vught said some UK institutions still see U-Multirank as a European Commission attempt to make sure the European universities do better than they do in other rankings.

“This is not really fair as we are as objective as other rankings, or perhaps even more since we don’t use subjective weights for indicators, and there are more than 90 countries involved.”

“The United States is less of a problem than the UK,” Van Vught added.

From next year, U-Multirank plans to pre-fill the US institutions’ questionnaires with data from IPEDS, the federal US data system.

“Currently 168 US universities are in U-Multirank and we hope to enrol many more next year based on these pre-filled questionnaires which we will ask the universities to look at.

Van Vught said the target of reaching 1,000 active U-Multirank participants is on track for next year and that U-Multirank is talking to the Chinese Ministry of Education about “an experimental situation” whereby a number of Chinese institutions will participate.

Readymade rankings, new web tool

To coincide with the 2016 U-Multirank, a ‘readymade’ ranking of research and research linkages shows individual university performance in this key area.

A ranking of performance in teaching and learning will be released next week using feedback from more than 105,000 students in participating universities.

Safi Sabuni, president of the Erasmus Student Network, said that with growing student mobility ‘there is a need for university comparisons across all different aspects of performance excellence like internationalisation and teaching and learning, and U-Multirank does just that with its multi-dimensional approach”.

A new mobile web tool has also been created to help U-Multirank users create their own personalised rankings on their smart phone or tablet.

Professor Frank Ziegele, U-Multirank’s second joint project leader, said the new lists showed again the many different ways universities could demonstrate excellence. While research was important, “diversity of purpose is critical to the strength of higher education as a whole”.

Sydney universities crack down on cheating students

Universities across Sydney are cracking down on cheating in tertiary assessment tasks, after Fairfax Media revealed chronic misconduct across the sector. 

The University of Sydney, University of Technology and the University of NSW have all implemented strict new policies on assessments, which include the reintroduction of closed-book exams, question and answer sessions after assessments, a shift away from take-home assignments and a ban on wristwatches in exams.

The clampdown comes after a Fairfax Media investigation in 2014 revealed up to 1000 students from 16 universities had hired the Sydney-based MyMaster company to ghost-write their assignments and sit online tests. 

In the wake of the investigation two university students were expelled and a further 70 faced severe penalties, with four having their degrees revoked from NSW's most prestigious universities after being identified in connection with the online essay writing company.

The deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Technology, Shirley Alexander, said universities had become much more aware of cheating since the scandal.

"Taxpayers spend a lot of money on university education," Professor Alexander said. "It is absolutely incumbent on us that when we put a stamp on their graduation certificate that says this person has met the requirements of the degree, that they actually have." 

Professor Alexander said UTS had moved more in the direction of open-book exams in order to minimise cheating by asking students to come up with creative rather than rote-learned answers. 

"We are trying to prepare people to enter the real world of work," she said. "The assessments are much harder to design but people can't pass just by copying. It is much harder to cheat in that way." 

She said students would be asked random questions by an academic after completing take-home assessments to ensure they understood the content before being able to pass.

On Monday, the NSW government's Legal Profession Admissions Board advised students that it would be instituting a new closed-book exam policy and would be banning the publication of past exam papers and the use of wristwatches. Law exams have traditionally been open book, with students required to adapt large swathes of information to questions.  

"The introduction of the closed-book exam policy reflects the need for increased attention to maintaining the integrity of the Board's exams process," the board wrote in a letter to students. "[This is] particularly as a result of recent media reporting of widespread cheating in tertiary assessment tasks, and the University of Sydney's subsequent report into the prevention and detection of academic misconduct". 

The board added that wristwatches of any kind were no longer permitted to be worn or placed on the desk during an exam. "This is because many smartwatches now look similar to standard wristwatches." Macquarie University has instituted a similar ban. 

On Monday, the University of Sydney also updated its academic honesty policy to prevent students from submitting ghost-written assessments by instituting oral presentations, periodic assessment of drafts and implementing supervised examinations with a minimum pass mark, the policy states.

UNSW has also increased its reliance on supervised exams. Deputy vice-chancellor Merlin Crossley said the university had a multi-pronged approach to plagiarism, including the use of online detection tools such as Turnitin. 

"Supervised exams continue to be a critical element of our assessment mix and over the last three years there has been an increase in the use of exams by around 5 per cent each year," he said. 

Western Sydney University's deputy vice-chancellor, Denise Kirkpatrick, said the Parramatta institution was currently conducting an extensive review of its assessment procedures.

"New technologies and contemporary attitudes continue to present challenges to educational organisations that seek to preserve the quality and integrity of learning," she said.

Online MBA poll: Things I wish I had known

Is an online MBA a real substitute for a campus degree? Yes, say those who studied on these online programmes and who roundly endorse the format.

Eighty-six per cent of online MBA graduates who responded to a Financial Times poll* on the subject said they would not study on a campus-based MBA . Of the remainder, just 4 per cent regret taking the virtual route, while 10 per cent were undecided.

Of the 206 respondents who completed the FT poll, 98 per cent would recommend their programme to others and 83 per cent gave a score of eight out of 10 or higher when ranking the value for money aspect of their course.

It all sounds promising, but is there anything the class of 2010 wishes they had known before embarking on their course?

Time-consuming 

About half of the participants – 48 per cent – said their programme was more time-consuming than expected. Others said it was essential to get support from your employer. Without this, one graduate claims this led to no holidays and little free time for a few years.

One individual recalls the school making it clear that the workload was just as demanding as traditional programmes: “Still, in the back of my mind I was hoping they weren’t right. However, it was as rigorous as they warned – probably better for me in the end, but people going into a top online programme, such as I did, shouldn’t expect a free lunch on the workload.”

Juggling work and study priorities can have an effect on personal life. One graduate recommends her course, but with caveats. “If you have high family obligations, you better have strong support to cover you,” she warns.

Having the right equipment is also important. As one student stresses – you need to have your own personal computer rather than relying on the one at work, otherwise you never see home.

More challenging 

About 29 per cent said their MBA was more challenging than expected. One respondent explains: “For some reason, I thought an online programme would be easier than in the classroom or at least less challenging. By comparing notes with friends in other MBA programmes I found it to be just as hard as classroom programmes.”

Networking opportunities 

There were mixed reviews about successful networking, as studying at a distance can pose challenges when it comes to interacting with peers. About 65 per cent believed their school could have done better in providing more networking opportunities.

Another graduate laments, “One of the greatest limitations of an online MBA is the lack of networking with fellow students and faculty. In this respect, this is probably not the best option if you plan for a radical job change, that is, from a technical position to a managerial one . . . as recruiters quickly put labels on people and an online MBA is usually perceived as a nice add-on but definitely not as a game changer.”

Also, 51 per cent of the group indicate, in varying degrees, that the school could have provided more on-campus activities. One participant wishes there were more opportunities to meet other students in the region.

In contrast, one individual notes: “There is a misconception that online programmes don’t have good networking opportunities. However, I believe it to be opposite. As most of my colleagues were from every corner of the globe and we were so used to being in touch via online methods, we are still very much in contact and I now have someone in every continent I can reach out to.”

Similarly, one respondent argues that: “Networking with other students was really up to our respective schedules. In some cases, students were located in other countries, which added a unique real-world complexity that would not be experienced in the classroom.”

The poll reveals an average score of seven out of 10 when it came to ease of networking and communicating with fellow students, where one was difficult and 10 very easy. Email is the preferred medium for communicating and networking, it seems, followed by the school’s online learning system and online forums.

Employment opportunities 

In terms of career impact, 59 per cent of graduates managed to secure a job offer graduation and 57 per cent also got a promotion as a result of their MBA. Perhaps more importantly, 66 per cent managed to apply what they had learnt in the workplace.

However, some employers remain unconvinced about online MBA programmes because they are not ranked. As a consequence, one graduate complained, they are not always taken seriously by recruiters.

Another respondent says it is difficult to get access to an internship if you are still working and even if you are not in employment - there is no time between classes to take advantage of work placements.

“If you are looking at the MBA to change career paths, this is a limiting factor because internships are the main ways companies recruit. You are more likely to continue with your existing career path and job you had before starting the MBA even if you want to change,” he adds.

How to pay for an MBA

Studying for an MBA is a long-term personal commitment and one that comes with a significant price tag. With tuition fees for the top 10 programmes in the FT Global MBA rankings averaging almost $70,000, funding a course is likely to be among the biggest expenses MBA students will incur during their lifetime.

Tuition fees, though, are just one factor to consider when budgeting for an MBA. Living costs, course materials and exam fees should also be taken into account.

Unless prospective students have substantial savings tucked away, they will need to call on multiple sources of funding to cover the cost of their studies, particularly in the absence of income from full-time employment. According to Harvard Business School, 65 per cent of students rely on financial assistance during their MBA studies, while at HEC Paris this figure is just over 55 per cent.

MBA students are advised to begin researching their funding options early. “Every year we see candidates who are unable to start the MBA when they planned, due to allowing insufficient time to arrange funding,” says Sarah Finch, senior MBA admissions officer at Cass Business School in London. “It is very important to have funding arranged for the duration of the MBA before starting the course, and for students not to overstretch themselves financially.”

Scholarships 

Top business schools do not want to risk losing the best MBA talent to rival programmes, so many will offer a range of scholarships to attract stellar candidates. “We realise an MBA is a big financial commitment and we want the best calibre of candidates. That requires a good range of scholarships,” says Sotirios Paroutis, assistant dean of Warwick Business School.

Chen Shimin, MBA director at Ceibs in Shanghai, says in the past year the school has offered $2m worth of scholarships to about 180 students. “Providing access to financial resources is very important in attracting top talent from around the world. MBA programmes are becoming extremely competitive,” he says.

Most business schools will list details of scholarships on the finance section of their website, including those supported by companies and foundations.

In addition to many of the merit-based awards, MBA students may find their backgrounds or previous careers make them eligible for some of the more diverse scholarships on offer. Columbia Business School in the US, for example, which provides financial aid for 46 per cent of its MBA students, offers a dedicated scholarship for those joining its programme from a military background.

In a drive to encourage more women into top business roles, some institutions, such as London Business School, offer scholarships specifically for female MBA students.

Scholarships are also available for students who choose to study abroad. Many business schools, including Harvard, give Fulbright scholarships to non-US students studying in the US and US students studying overseas.

Loans 

Large banks have retreated from the MBA market in recent years, meaning students have become reliant on other sources for loans. But banks still play an important role in funding MBA studies.

In the UK, career development loans from the Co-operative Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays are available to students who intend to stay in the UK or European Economic Area after their MBA programme. The loans are for up to £10,000 and the UK government pays the interest until the student graduates.

Santander has loan agreements with a number of business schools, including Cass and Oxford’s Saïd, for up to £20,000. The interest rate is 10 per cent for amounts from £7,500.

MBA students resident in the US can opt for a Federal Stafford loan, allowing them to borrow up to $20,500. The interest rate for the 2014-15 academic year is 6.21 per cent. To supplement these loans, US students can also apply for a Graduate Plus loan, which has an interest rate currently fixed at 7.21 per cent.

Non-US students are not eligible for Stafford loans, but can borrow from banks, although they will need a US resident to co-sign any loan to guarantee repayment.

In addition, several US business schools, including NYU Stern and Wharton, have formed partnerships with credit unions to give international students access to loans without the need for a US co-signer.

Ceibs also offers loans with China Merchants Bank for all MBA students at an interest rate of 6.15 per cent.

Crowdfunding 

An alternative to bank loans is to source funding from peer-to-peer lenders, giving students access to funding that is often backed by business school alumni. Cameron Stevens, chief executive of Prodigy Finance, a peer-to-peer lending platform, says the company is trying to fill a gap left by traditional banks that have exited MBA funding.

Prodigy provides loans to MBA students at 20 leading business schools in the US and Europe, including Insead and Cass. Loans are based on future earnings potential rather than an applicant’s credit history. “We get thousands of data points from universities on exit earnings and on entry profiles,” says Stevens. “We can see correlations between certain factors and can make an intelligent assessment of someone’s earnings potential.”

Interest rates on loans for MBA students at Insead, London Business School or Saïd start at 6.5 per cent.

CommonBond, which was founded by Wharton MBA alumni, also connects students with alumni investors at 20 top US business schools and has funded more than $100m in loans. Interest rates are 5.99 per cent fixed for a 10-year loan, rising to 6.49 per cent for 15 years.

SoFi is another peer-to-peer platform that provides loans to MBA students at a number of leading US universities.

Employer sponsorship 

MBA students may find their existing employer is willing to contribute towards the cost of their studies, but this often comes with a condition that they return to the company after graduating.

Sponsorship is not the most common option. Ceibs, for example, says about 7 per cent of its students are sponsored by their employer and normally return to their company on graduation, while 12 per cent of MBA students at Insead receive employer sponsorship.

However, those who want to secure the backing of their employer should consider pitching their MBA dissertation to senior management, suggests Warwick Business School’s Paroutis. “Some people do not realise the power of using the dissertation project as a pitch to their organisation,” he says.