Academic institutions around the world spend much of their budgets building prestige, particularly by climbing university rankings. From Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) to Times Higher Education (THE), these rankings claim to motivate institutions to improve quality education, from strengthening learning infrastructure to increasing research publications.
Yet this “quality” does not necessarily translate to student life or reflect what students actually need. Many students continue to grapple with economic inequalities, harassment on campus, and administrative mandates that restrict students.
What truly defines quality education? While administrations are easy targets for blame, an underlying system makes university rankings yield a contrasting reality in which educational priorities are distorted.
The rubric is as follows:
University rankings, particularly in the context of top global rankings, each have their own methodologies and measurements. QS, for one, assigns research 50% of the overall score. Here, academic experts are surveyed on an institution’s area of expertise and overall excellence, and citations per faculty are counted to measure research volume.
Employability follows at 20%, with the QS Employer Survey sent to global academics and employers to assess how an institution prepares its students for employment, partners with industry, and fosters graduate success. The remaining 30% are allocated unevenly across learning experience, globalisation, and sustainability to measure the faculty-student ratio (FSR), interpret diversity, and review environmental and governance projects on campuses.
THE has five core pillars of evaluation, and two of them include research that collectively weigh half the overall. In the same light as QS, research quality sits highest at 30%, and research environment comes right next at 29%. Under these, citation volume is heavily measured, while other areas such as income, productivity, and influence are also reviewed.
Teaching, on the other hand, accounts for 29.5%. Compared to QS, THE secondly focuses on the learning environment, including teaching reputation, FSR, income, and doctorate ratios. The 11.5% left is given to international outlook and industry. For data collection, surveys are also used; THE’s Academic Reputation Survey invites experienced scholars to nominate institutions in a voting system.
In the overview, both rankings heavily prioritise research in their criteria, while also considering learning experiences and internationalisation. It appears dynamic: focusing on contributing to the body of knowledge, fostering cultural diversity, and disseminating information evenly from professors to students.
These are commendable considerations to build quality education. However, reality often differs from what is captured in evaluation metrics. Especially from a student’s perspective, institutional resources could be redirected towards holistic student support.
Shifting both expectations and realities
Much of university life comes through the daily experiences and rights: safety on campus, avenues for wellbeing support, and opportunities for diverse talents to thrive. Yet students face the opposite—discrimination, inaccessibility, and censorship.
Quality education, not to mention, comes at a hefty price. For those with scholarships, other university living expenses can remain burdensome. Despite the large investment and even the yearly tuition increases, the return is not as tangible. And while entering a particular university is mostly the student’s choice, they, along with the administration, are also caught in a system where prestige clouds priorities.
I witnessed these dilemmas firsthand as a student at De La Salle University, a top university in the Philippines according to QS and THE. While I am grateful to attend a prestigious school with few complaints, there are still gaps that need to be filled. Funds and focus on infrastructure could also be distributed to fulfil student needs, such as additional financial aid, relevant career guidance, and diverse, available professors.
At the University of Sydney, realities are also contrasting. Even as USyd generates even more profit as a higher-ranking, more populous institution, USyd students continue to struggle to attain affordable housing, face on-campus intimidation, and exercise their right to assemble and protest.
The whole concept of prestige, especially through ranking systems or any other external evaluation, should be reconsidered. Education should go beyond purely collecting achievements and publishing research, and should also share in cultivating cultures of genuine service and the protection of rights if the end goal is to make a better society anyway.
At the end of the day, quality education is a right. Students should not have to compromise their finances, safety, or dignity to learn and complete their studies. There is nothing wrong with aiming for excellence; it just has to be redefined to reflect what is truly representative.