
Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa.
Historically, business schools have been ranked by different media and education analysts more often than other segments of higher education. In the past years, however, the progressive globalisation of higher education, and particularly of postgraduate programmes, has resulted in increasing competition among universities to attract a larger number of international students, mobility of professors and knowledge as well as in the proliferation of university rankings. This month, Newsweek magazine has published a ranking of global universities where, for the first time, 19 out of the top 45 listed instittuions are non-US universities. Richard Levin, who writes the cover story of this survey, explains that "as never before in their long history, universities have become instruments of national competition as well as instruments of peace. They are the locus of the scientific discoveries that move economies forward, and the primary means of educating the talent required to obtain and maintain competitive advantage. But at the same time, the opening of national borders to the flow of goods, services, information and especially people has made universities a powerful force for global integration, mutual understanding and geopolitical stability".
On the other hand, US News and World report has published recently its America´s Best Graduate Schools 2007 - Ranking of Top Business Schools. The Complete Guide to Business Schools. This survey is a classical in the US, athough not exempted from critics. In a recommendable article published in The New York Times on August 16th, David Leonhardt affirms that "by now, 23 years after U.S. News got into this game, the responses have become pretty predictable. Disappointed college officials dismiss the ranking as being beneath the lofty aims of a university, while administrators pleased with their status order new marketing materials bragging about it — and then tell anyone who asks that, obviously, they realize the ranking is beneath the lofty aims of a university".
This week's issue of The Economist also comments on the US News and World Report rankings. Interestingly, its author opts for pragmatism: "whether the rankings are fair is beside the point, because they are wildly influential. In the 1983 survey barely half of the presidents bothered to respond. Today, only a handful dare abstain".
I have argued in this blog -where rankings have been a recurrent issue of discussion- that rankings, if conducted according to the basic principles of impartiality, transparency and consistency, add real value to the market. In the past years, many new ranking schemes have entered the scene, evidence that the market demands them. Different stakeholders –prospective students, recruiters and corporate clients- see rankings as additional criteria to gather further information and make the educational offerings more easily comparable. However, the remaining question is how can we make rankings more consistent and reliable.
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