Academic Funding

“Don’t look to the Ivy League”

May 16, 2011 1970

In an essay published in the London Review of Books, Howard Hotson analyses the THE-QS World University Rankings and concludes that market competition drives up prices rather than academic standards.

Evidence from the US suggests that universities’ income from higher fees is invested not in academic excellence but in the ‘student experience’, and that price inflation is accompanied by grade inflation. Hotson concludes that in terms of value for money, the British university system is “probably the best in the world”.

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