I have to admit, I get a kind of horror film like chuckle--funny yet scary--out of these best of lists whether they are the best films of all time, the best TV shows of the 1990s, the best sculptures since time immemorial, the US News and World Report rankings of American colleges and universities, or the CS list of the best universities in the world for 2021. The reason I do is because there are fundamental problems with these lists.
Let's start with reputation. Reputations are, at least in part, intersubjective and are impacted by broader practises associated with social and cultural capital. Reputations, in other words, are, at least in part, cultural and symbolic, and are often, if not generally, impacted by ideologies that are of questionable empirical status.
Second, there are different kinds of colleges and universities. There are, in the United States, for instance, teaching colleges (Siena), research colleges (Amherst), teaching universities (Fort Hays), and research universities (Indiana University, Bloomington, Ohio University). Each of these are somewhat different making comparisons between them, other than the conclusion that they are different, problematic.
I want to focus in the rest of this blog on research universities. When we do this it becomes crystal clear that there are, as a matter of empirical fact, important differences between research universities. There are, in the US, for instance, "elite" American universities like Indiana, Michigan Harvard, and Pittsburgh all members of the elite Association of American Universities. There are also, research universities that are not members of the AAU (Albany, Kent State, Nebraska, Syracuse) because they don't meet the criteria for membership. Comparing "elite" research universities with non-"elite" research universities is possible since they are both research universities, apples. Nevertheless, they are also different and are thus, to continue with the metaphor, rather like the difference between sweet apples and tart apples.
There are also important differences among these "elite" research universities as anyone with a grasp of history knows, a difference that is akin to the differences between sweet pink lady apples and sweet honey crisp apples. One of the differences in elite Association of American Universities universities, for instance, involves the issue of whether these "elite" research universities are all purpose universities with liberal arts, business, agricultural, and engineering schools, like Ohio State, Purdue, Penn State, Michigan State, and Iowa State, all land grant institutions of their respective states, or whether they are liberal arts universities.
America's land grant colleges began life as agricultural research colleges and universities thanks to the Land Grant College Act of 1862 and had the mission of engaging in extensive agricultural research and disseminating this research to farmers in the states in which they were located, states where agriculture was once dominant.
Some of the states where land grant colleges were founded, however, already had existing public universities. In the period after World War II many of these eventually grew into "elite" research oriented liberal arts universities. These non-land grant research universities, such as Indiana University, Bloomington, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Michigan, and the University of Iowa, today are essentially large scale liberal arts universities with business colleges, schools of law, and sometimes medical colleges--Indiana's medical college is in Indianapolis, home to a growing non-"elite" research university, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, IUPUI, adding an important wrinkle to any empirical analysis. Thus to compare Indiana University, Bloomington, which is basically a massive liberal arts university, to Purdue University with its applied agricultural and engineering schools, research and applied research programmes that are research intensive, and with their expanding liberal arts programmes, is problematic and analytical controls must be put in place when comparing them. One must, in other words, compare like--liberal arts at Indiana--with like--liberal arts at Purdue. Any survey that doesn't do this is problematic for what I hope are obvious reasons.
Some of the states where land grant colleges were founded, however, already had existing public universities. In the period after World War II many of these eventually grew into "elite" research oriented liberal arts universities. These non-land grant research universities, such as Indiana University, Bloomington, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Michigan, and the University of Iowa, today are essentially large scale liberal arts universities with business colleges, schools of law, and sometimes medical colleges--Indiana's medical college is in Indianapolis, home to a growing non-"elite" research university, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, IUPUI, adding an important wrinkle to any empirical analysis. Thus to compare Indiana University, Bloomington, which is basically a massive liberal arts university, to Purdue University with its applied agricultural and engineering schools, research and applied research programmes that are research intensive, and with their expanding liberal arts programmes, is problematic and analytical controls must be put in place when comparing them. One must, in other words, compare like--liberal arts at Indiana--with like--liberal arts at Purdue. Any survey that doesn't do this is problematic for what I hope are obvious reasons.
Third, it is absurd to compare some American "elite" private colleges and universities with more selective admissions criteria, and who can be selective in their admissions, save when it comes to legacies and athletes, with state colleges and universities of the research or teaching variety, with less selective admissions criteria because their mission, at least in part, is to serve the residents of that state. Again this is like comparing various types of apples with each other.
Given all this, it is hard to think of these best of college and universities lists as anything other than historically anemic and theoretically week publicity. And that seems homologous with the world of neoliberal corporate capitalism we sadly live in these days, even in colleges and universities.
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