e21 Olympics: Higher Education
The United States finally earned a medal in the e21 Olympics by winning a gold in the higher education event. The United States has 77 universities in the top 200 World University Rankings 2013-14, developed by Times Higher Education and Thomson Reuters, more than any other country. The United States more than doubled the score of the silver medalist, the United Kingdom
, which had 31 universities in the top 200. The Netherlands earned a bronze medal with 12 universities in the top 200, besting Germany, which had ten.
An examination of the 25 top ranked universities tips the results even further in favor of the United States. Eighteen of the top 25 universities (72 percent) are from the United States. Caltech, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and Princeton are the top-ranked U.S. universities.
Times Higher Education and Thomson Reuters utilize a methodology that combines teaching, research output, and research influence as equal 30 percent weights. International outlook and industry income combine to affect the remaining ten percent of overall scores.
U.S. universities score highly in the rankings largely because of their research success. Of the 9 schools with research output scores higher than 90 (out of a possible 100), 7 are in the United States. American universities also have the best teachers in the world—all but one of the universities with teaching scores above 90 are in the United States.
American universities have the advantage of the largest academic endowments in the world. The University of Cambridge has the United Kingdom’s largest endowment, but it would rank tenth on a list of top U.S. university endowments. The third-largest U.K endowment, belonging to the University of London, would not even reach the top seventy U.S. university endowments.
Both U.S. and U.K. universities benefit from allowing generous proportions of foreign students to attend. According to the United Nations, 19 percent of global internationally mobile students study in the United States, the highest percent out of any country. Eleven percent of internationally mobile students choose the U.K., the second highest percent. By taking the most-qualified students from home or abroad, universities graduate highly-successful students ready to join the labor force and contribute to the economy. When graduates are successful, they often donate to their alma maters—reinforcing universities’ academic strengths. A highly-qualified student population also attracts the best and brightest professors, regardless of nationality.
While the Netherlands boasts no university that is particularly exceptional, on average its universities are high-quality institutions. Eight Dutch universities rank between 51 and 100 on the global rankings, second only to the U.S. at 16. Dutch universities welcomed 58,000 international students in 2011.
Though the United States excels in higher education, it squanders many of the economic gains of educating foreign students. The U.S. immigration system is unfriendly even for highly-skilled graduates. Each year, the Center for Immigration services awards only 85,000 H-1B visas. Last year, this cap was reached in less than a week. Because demand is so much greater than supply, receiving H1-B visas involves a large element of luck. This uncertainty creates disincentives for foreign graduates attempting to work in the United States after graduation. Many have suggested that foreign students graduating from U.S. universities should be automatically granted a green card. Allowing foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities to work here and contribute to the economy is a common-sense step towards increasing our economic growth.
After three events in the e21 Olympics, no country has earned more than one medal. Along with the United States, Ireland and Chile have also won e21 Olympic gold medals. Make sure to follow us tomorrow for our national budget deficit competition.
*The e21 Olympics are in no way affiliated with the International Olympic Committee