Modern societies regularly face crises that have major disruptive effects. Learning from past crises can inform better choices and policies when facing a new one. Following the 2008 global financial crisis, higher education scholars explored its effects on students' tuition fees through cuts in public funding. This article instead investigates how…

University rankings envision a level playing field between competing universities, particularly in higher education (HE) systems regulated along market lines. Drawing on social stratification theory, we argue that rankings exacerbate, rather than alleviate, resource inequalities between universities with historically consolidated reputations…

Higher education institutions present key social institutions ensuring the creation and transfer of knowledge, intellectual capital, and innovations. This fact determines the significance of universities in state regulation and allocating financial resources to the best of them is becoming a crucial objective in many countries. Goals of the…

During the pandemic, a number of states instituted hold-harmless funding policies to protect school district financially from declining enrollments (Center for Public Education, 2021). In addition, some school choice policies have protected traditional public schools financially from declining enrollments. Together, these policies raise the…

This study examines international brain race for world-class universities as measured by the QS World University Rankings (QS) and the Academic Ranking of World Universities, particularly in the context of Asian nations' institutional competition and benchmarking against American counterparts. Applying mixed methods with statistical analysis of…

Efforts to prevent or persuade increased emphasis on academic research at state colleges and regional universities demonstrate how emerging fields of higher education can be influenced through various policies and incentives. Utilizing the concept of strategic action fields (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012), this paper explains changes in…

This article extends Bourdieu's convertibility of different forms of capital to understand the patterns of study abroad by elite graduates from Peking University, China. We draw upon empirical data from a first-hand survey study involving 1,417 graduates from Peking University. The statistical analyses suggest a pattern of the conversions from…

This study empirically examines different factors that influence students to select universities in the UAE. The primary data were collected based on a survey of students at two public universities -- United Arab Emirates University and Zayed University, as well as three private universities -- New York University, Abu Dhabi University, and Alain…

U.S. News annually ranks universities' academic quality based on indicators claimed by U.S. News as the most prominent academic quality indicators (AQIs). In today's competitive higher education market, universities are concerned about their positions in U.S. News World Report (USNWR) rankings. On one hand, among all AQIs, undergraduate academic…

The Taiwan Ministry of Education (MOE) put forth the aim for the top university project (ATU) in 2005 with the aim of improving the worldwide academic competitiveness and ranking performance of selected Taiwanese universities. With the conclusion of the second phase of the project at the end of 2017, this study aims to critically examine and…

UK media coverage of global university league tables shows systematic bias towards the Russell Group, although also highlighting tensions within its membership. Coverage positions UK "elite" institutions between US superiority and Asian ascent. Coverage claims that league table results warrant UK university funding reform. However,…

The circulation of head football coaches is a well-established practice, and with it, salary costs are significantly outpacing other spending as institutions compete in the pursuit of prestige. This movement of college football coaches is known in the popular press as the "coaching carousel." The carousel is a fitting metaphor for a…

Recent global university rankings show that many Hong Kong universities are among the top 100 in the world. However, they are constantly under fire for the persistent outdated pedagogies in higher education. Because economic education is so highly regarded in Hong Kong as an international business hub, introductory economics has been taken as the…

Since the mid-1990s, the pressure of globalization and the pressing demands of a knowledge economy led to a series of educational reforms. The focus of these was the promotion of quality education and massification of higher education. After the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the governments in different parts of Asia have implemented…

The 2008 global financial crisis cast a long shadow over Ireland's higher education and research system. The IMF said Ireland experienced an "unprecedented economic correction", while Ireland's National Economic and Social Development Office said Ireland was beset by five different crises: a banking crisis, a fiscal crisis, an economic…