Global Ranking of Universities by Reputation: The Hidden Criterion

Abstract

ABSTRACT The ranking of World Universities is a fairly recent phenomenon. It is one of the products of internationalization of higher education. Many of the indices used by the ranking systems are now familiar to readers and writers. The age of an institution is one salient factor often not considered in rankings. The objective of this study is to critically discuss the relevance of age in relation to the metrics used and to determine whether or not age can be shown to have a place in university rankings .The analysis of data shows the average age of the top 50 institutions by reputation to be 206 years and the median 162. A look at the rankings will not reveal this important criterion except each of these ranked universities is linked with the year it was founded. It concludes that there is value in age and should be factored into university rankings.