Rankings, Student Choice and Recruitment

Abstract

While rankings have existed for almost 100 years, they have gained international popularity and notoriety only since the 1980s. A large element of their success has been their ability to (appear to) satisfy a “public demand for transparency and information that institutions and government have not been able to meet on their own” (Usher and Savino, 2006, 38). Clarke (2007, 35) says that the growing demand for rankings has been “fuelled by several trends in higher education, including increasing participation rates, higher costs, and the view of students as consumers who expect value for money”. Morse (2010a) made a similar point; given the substantial costs associated with some private colleges in the US — around USD 50,000 per year (EUR 37,000) or USD 200,000 (EUR 148,000) for an undergraduate degree — “there is a real need for information to determine the relative merits of schools given their cost”. The value proposition is also asserted by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education which remarked: Students invest both time and money in their education. As a result, it is important for potential students to have access to comprehensive and relevant information about higher education before they choose (HSV, 2009, 6).