Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University produces an annual ranking of research universities. The methodology values publications and faculty awards (Nobel and Fields) which belies the focus on ranking research not for example the quality of education provided.
You could argue one measure does partially address teaching as the Nobel and Fields prizes to alumni are created to the institution (that is separate from a measure of faculty that receive those honors). I would agree it partially measure the education though it also measures the ability of that school to attract the absolute best candidates (whether they would have been just as successful going elsewhere is a fair question).
Results from the 2014 rankings of top 500 universities with the number of schools by country:
location | Top 100 | % of World Population |
% of World GDP | % of top 500 |
---|---|---|---|---|
USA | 52 | 4.5% | 22.2% | 29.2% |
United Kingdom | 8 | 0.9 | 3.5 | 7.6 |
Germany | 4 | 1.1 | 5.0 | 7.8 |
Canada | 4 | 0.5 | 2.4 | 4.2 |
France | 4 | 0.9 | 3.8 | 4.2 |
Japan | 3 | 1.8 | 7.8 | 3.8 |
Australia | 4 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 3.8 |
China | 0 | 19.2 | 11.7 | 8.8 |
Netherlands | 4 | 0.2 | 1.3 | 2.6 |
Sweden | 4 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 2.2 |
Switzerland | 5 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 1.4 |
South Korea | 0 | .7 | 1.7 | 2.0 |
India | 0 | 17.0 | 1.9 | 0.2 |
The top countries for top 100 and top 500 schools are listed above, but I skip over many after the top 7 or 8 to include a few countries I like to watch, see the ranking site for the full list. Country population and GDP data were taken from the World Development Indicators 2013, by the World Bank.
There is little change in top 100 since 2008, which I think is a good sign, it wouldn’t make much sense to have radical shifts quickly in this type of ranking. The USA lost 2 schools in the top 100, UK lost 3, Germany lost 2, Switzerland gained 2, Netherlands gain 2…
There is more change in the top 500 where changes are more sensible (there is probably not much separating schools ranked in the 300’s from those in the 500’s so variation and strong pushes (from countries like China) can have an impact. China gained 14 more schools in the top 500. China’s GDP also increased from 6.6% of global GDP to 11.7%.
University of Wisconsin – Madison is 24th, it was 17th in 2008 My father taught there while I grew up.
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Career Prospect for Engineers Continues to Look Positive
Posted on August 12, 2011 Comments (11)
As I have written previously the career prospects for engineers are bright around the globe. Many countries realize the importance of engineering and have taken steps to compete as a center of excellence for engineering. It is a smart economic policy. Ironically, the USA, that did such a great job at this in the 1960’s and 1970’s, has been falling down in this regard. A significant reason for this is the USA can only fund so many things and a broken health care system, military complex, bailouts to bankers (trust fund babies and others) cost a lot of money. You chose what to fund, and those are taking much of the available USA funds. There are also non-economic reasons, such as the turn in the last decade in the USA to make the barriers for foreigner engineers (and others) to go through to go to school, visit and stay in the USA have all increased dramatically.
Back to the prospects for engineers: their are shortages of good engineers all over (and the future projections don’t show any reason to believe this will change). Germany Faces a Shortage of Engineers:
…
Policymakers in Berlin have responded to the shortage of skilled workers with a number of measures, including changes in immigration rules that allow German companies to hire engineers from other countries, including those outside of the European Union. Among them: The annual salary that companies must pay foreigners has been lowered from 60,000 Euro (US $95,000) to 40,000 Euro, which is roughly the starting salary of an engineering graduate in Germany…
To make it easy for engineers to move around Europe, engineering associations and other groups across Europe are working with the European Commission (the executive arm of the European Union) to launch the new Engineering Card. The card, which German engineers can apply for now and other countries are planning to launch, provides standardized information about the engineer’s qualifications and skills for greater transparency.
…
“We don’t expect many engineers will come, because among other reasons, there is a shortage of engineers across Europe,”
Related: Engineering Again Dominates The Highest Paying College Degree Programs – S&P 500 CEO’s: Engineers Stay at the Top – China’s Technology Savvy Leadership – Engineers: Future Prospects – Economic Strength Through Technology Leadership
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