How US universities compare to top international schools

While America has long been lauded as the pinnacle of higher education, Kevin Carey of the New America Foundation would argue otherwise.

In The New York Times, Carey wrote about the ways in which our higher education system is lagging behind:

America's perceived international dominance of higher education, by contrast, rests largely on global rankings of top universities. According to a recent ranking by the London-based Times Higher Education, 18 of the world's top 25 universities are American. Similarly, the Academic Ranking of World Universities, published annually by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, gives us 19 of 25...

International university rankings, moreover, have little to do with education. Instead, they focus on universities as research institutions, using metrics such as the number of Nobel Prize winners on staff and journal articles published. A university could stop enrolling undergraduates with no effect on its score.

On The Daily Circuit, we dig into the rankings and discuss ways to improve our higher education system.