U.S. News & World Report to publish first world's Best Colleges & Universities

U.S. News & World Report is to publish first ever World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings. The world is rapidly changing and evolving. More students and faculty are eager to explore the higher education options in other counties. Universities worldwide are competing for the best and brightest students, the most highly recognized research faculty, and coveted research dollars. Countries at all levels of the economic development scale are actively trying to build world-class universities to serve as economic and academic catalysts. In other words, the world of higher education is becoming increasingly "flat." These new World's Best Colleges rankings help put these global trends in context.

In addition to the overall world ranking list, U.S. News is also publishing lists for the Top 30 Asian Universities, Top 20 Australian and New Zealand Universities, Top 20 Canadian Universities, and Top 30 European and UK Universities. top 50 global rankings in the fields of arts and humanities; engineering and IT; life sciences and biomedicine; natural sciences; and social sciences are produced also.

How are the World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings different from the America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools rankings?

* First, none of the data used in the America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools rankings is used to compute any of the World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings. The world rankings are based on the THE-QS World University Rankings, which are produced in association with QS Quacquarelli Symonds. Quacquarelli Symonds does all the data collection and calculations for the World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings.

* Second, the methodology used to compute the World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings is different in many key areas from what we use in the America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools. It's true that both the America's Best and the World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings use peer surveys. However, the survey process used to calculate peer assessment and recruiter reviews in the World's Best rankings are conducted very differently. Because of the limitations and the availability of cross-country comparative data, the world ranking system relies heavily on research performance measured through citations per faculty member. The U.S. News rankings do not use citation analysis.

* The America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools rankings rely heavily on student and school-specific data—such as scores on admission tests, graduation rates, retention rates and financial resources—that are not part World's Best Colleges and Universities because such student and school-specific data can't be compared internationally.

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