The Ranking Illusion: Unmasking the Flaws in Global University Assessment Systems

Introduction

Educational institution rankings have become ubiquitous in the contemporary higher education landscape. Publications such as the QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education, and the U.S. News & World Report shape the perceptions of millions of students, parents, employers, and policymakers annually. However, despite their widespread influence and visibility, a growing chorus of critics – ranging from academics to university leaders to educational researchers – challenges the fundamental validity, fairness, and utility of these ranking systems. This article explores the multifaceted reasons why many educators, scholars, and stakeholders remain skeptical of institutional rankings and question their legitimacy as measures of educational quality.

The Problem of Subjective and Biased Metrics

One of the most significant critiques leveled against educational rankings centers on their reliance upon subjective and methodologically questionable indicators. Many ranking systems heavily weight reputation-based metrics. For instance, academic and employer reputation together constitute forty-five percent of the total ranking score, despite being purely perception-based assessments rather than objective measures of institutional performance (Badiuzzaman, 2025). These survey-based metrics tend to perpetuate established hierarchies rather than reflect genuine changes in institutional quality or performance.

The use of reputation metrics creates a circular problem wherein historical rankings reinforce themselves through subsequent surveys. Universities ranked highly in previous years benefit from elevated perceptions in reputation surveys, regardless of their current actual performance. This self-perpetuating cycle means that rankings often become more reflective of past prestige than present educational quality (Moustafa, 2024). Furthermore, the individuals completing these surveys may lack direct knowledge of institutions and may instead rely upon stereotypes, anecdotal information, or biased impressions shaped by media coverage rather than rigorous assessment.

Undervaluation of Teaching Quality and Student Support

A pervasive criticism of institutional rankings is their systematic undervaluation of teaching quality, pedagogical innovation, and student support—the core missions of educational institutions. Research demonstrates a misalignment between teaching-related metrics and the criteria prioritized by global ranking systems. Despite evidence that lower student-to-faculty ratios correlate with better student engagement and learning outcomes, such measures remain underweighted in most ranking frameworks (Badiuzzaman, 2025). Consequently, metrics related to educational efficacy, student satisfaction, and learning outcomes are marginalized in favor of research visibility and internationalization markers.

This structural bias reflects a fundamental philosophical disagreement about what constitutes educational excellence. Many educators argue that high-quality teaching, mentorship, and support services are the bedrock of meaningful learning experiences, particularly for undergraduate and entry-level graduate students. Yet most ranking methodologies treat these dimensions as secondary considerations, if they are included at all (Moustafa, 2024). This misalignment between ranking priorities and actual educational quality creates a troubling disconnect wherein institutions genuinely focused on teaching excellence may find themselves ranked lower than research-intensive universities with weaker pedagogical commitments.

Inequity and Regional Bias

Another substantial concern involves the inherent inequities and geographic biases embedded within ranking systems. Research has revealed that multiple ranking frameworks exhibit systematic bias toward research-focused institutions while overlooking the value of teaching-centered colleges and universities (Moustafa, 2024). Furthermore, Western universities – particularly those in English-speaking countries – enjoy structural advantages within ranking calculations. The dominance of English as the language of scholarly publication and assessment further disadvantages non-Anglophone institutions, creating a system that inadvertently privileges wealthier, established Western universities.

Institutions from developing nations, smaller specialized colleges, and universities emphasizing regional community engagement often find themselves marginalized or ranked unfavorably regardless of their educational quality or social impact (Richardson et al., 2023, as cited in MarketWatch, 2023). This geographic and economic bias perpetuates and amplifies existing inequalities within the global higher education landscape, potentially directing resources away from institutions serving underrepresented populations or addressing regional development needs. The result is a hierarchical structure that reflects geopolitical advantage and economic resources more than genuine educational excellence.

Methodological Opacity and Inconsistency

Transparency and methodological rigor are foundational principles for any legitimate evaluation system. Unfortunately, many ranking organizations fall short in this regard. The methodologies and underlying data used to rank institutions are frequently not fully available for public scrutiny, making it difficult for universities to understand precisely how they are evaluated or for independent researchers to verify or reproduce the ranking calculations (Moustafa, 2024; Badiuzzaman, 2025). This lack of transparency undermines the scientific credibility of rankings and prevents meaningful external validation.

Moreover, inconsistency across different ranking systems compounds this problem. Different organizations employ divergent metrics, weightings, and data collection methodologies, often yielding significantly different – or even contradictory – results for the same institutions. A university might rank highly according to one system while ranking poorly in another, a discrepancy difficult to reconcile if rankings truly reflected objective institutional quality (CDS, 2024). This methodological fragmentation suggests that rankings reveal more about each organization’s particular biases and definitions of “quality” than about any absolute institutional merit.

The Problem of Incomparable Institutions

Rankings typically attempt to compare vastly different institutions on a single linear scale, despite their fundamental structural and contextual differences. Large research universities, small liberal arts colleges, specialized professional schools, community colleges, and institutions in different nations operating under different educational frameworks are often forced into the same ranking hierarchy. Yet these institutions serve different missions, serve different student populations, and operate under different constraints and resources (MarketWatch, 2023). Meaningful comparison requires institutions to be genuinely comparable along relevant dimensions, a condition rarely satisfied in global ranking exercises.

This incomparability problem creates inherent unfairness. A regional university serving primarily first-generation and low-income students from its local community may provide transformative educational experiences and social mobility opportunities, yet cannot compete on research output or international student recruitment metrics valued by global rankings. The simplistic imposition of a single ranking logic across heterogeneous institutions distorts our understanding of their true contributions and accomplishments.

Gaming and Perverse Incentives

A significant unintended consequence of rankings is the incentive structure they create for universities to pursue strategies that artificially inflate their ranking positions rather than genuinely improve educational quality or institutional mission fulfillment. Universities may strategically manipulate data or reallocate resources specifically to boost metrics weighted heavily in ranking calculations, rather than investing in broader institutional improvement (Moustafa, 2024). For instance, universities might hire renowned faculty primarily for their reputation and citation counts rather than their teaching excellence or pedagogical innovation, or redirect resources toward research infrastructure at the expense of student support services.

This “gaming” phenomenon creates a perverse inversion of institutional priorities whereby rankings – which ostensibly measure quality – actually incentivize behaviors detrimental to genuine educational quality. The obsession with numerical improvement in specific metrics can lead institutions away from their core missions and toward short-term positioning strategies. Furthermore, some universities have been documented engaging in more unethical practices, including data manipulation, paying authors to co-affiliate publications, or other forms of scientific misconduct designed to artificially enhance rankings (Moustafa, 2024). These behaviors undermine the integrity of both the institutions involved and the ranking systems themselves.

Conflation of Wealth with Quality

A fundamental category error embedded within many ranking systems involves the conflation of institutional wealth and resources with educational quality. Metrics such as selectivity, standardized test scores, per-student expenditure, and research funding are more closely correlated with an institution’s socioeconomic privilege and student body wealth than with actual educational outcomes or quality (MarketWatch, 2023). Students from affluent families typically score higher on standardized tests, not because their institutions provide superior education, but because they have access to expensive test preparation resources and cultural capital associated with higher test performance.

Similarly, well-resourced universities can invest more heavily in research infrastructure, attract prominent faculty, and maintain low student-to-faculty ratios – all factors weighted in ranking calculations. Yet these structural advantages reflect pre-existing wealth disparities rather than demonstrated educational excellence. Consequently, ranking systems inadvertently reward privilege and may actively disadvantage institutions and students who operate with fewer resources or who serve populations that have historically been excluded from higher education.

The Paradox of Ranking Mutability

A revealing irony in ranking systems emerges when methodologies change, as they periodically do in response to criticism. When U.S. News & World Report modified its ranking methodology in 2024 to emphasize student outcomes and social mobility, numerous prestigious universities that had previously ranked highly suddenly experienced dramatic shifts in their positions – not because any substantial change occurred in their institutions, but solely because the evaluation criteria changed (MarketWatch, 2023). This mutability reveals that rankings reflect the particular definitions and assumptions embedded within specific methodologies rather than reflecting some objective institutional quality that should remain relatively stable over time.

When institutions simultaneously criticize ranking changes as illegitimate while benefiting from favorable rankings, the central claim that rankings measure objective quality becomes increasingly difficult to defend. If institutional quality remained constant while rankings shifted dramatically due to methodological changes, then rankings clearly measure something other than genuine quality – they measure alignment with specific weighted metrics and definitions that are themselves contestable and subject to manipulation.

Conclusion: Toward More Authentic Assessment

The skepticism many hold toward institutional rankings reflects legitimate concerns about methodological validity, fairness, transparency, and unintended consequences. Rankings conflate institutional wealth with educational quality, embed geographic and cultural biases, undervalue teaching and student support, rely upon subjective metrics, lack transparency, and create perverse incentives for strategic gaming rather than genuine improvement. The dramatic inconsistencies across different ranking systems and the mutability of rankings in response to methodological changes suggest that they reveal more about the preferences of ranking organizations than about any objective institutional merit.

Rather than relying upon crude numerical rankings, stakeholders – students, families, employers, and policymakers – would benefit from more nuanced, transparent, and contextually sensitive assessments of institutional performance that recognize the diversity of institutional missions, acknowledge regional and specific student population needs, and emphasize genuine educational outcomes and social impact. Until ranking systems address these fundamental limitations, healthy skepticism about their validity and utility remains entirely warranted.

References

Badiuzzaman, M. (2025). Unpacking the metrics: A critical analysis of the 2025 QS world university rankings. Frontiers in Education, 10.

CDS. (2024). An analysis of the limitations of university rankings and its use. Indian Institute of Science, Centre for Decision Sciences.

MarketWatch. (2023). What the backlash to the new U.S. News college ranking reveals. Retrieved from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/

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Author Profile: ​​Dr. Jino Johny Malakkaran (https://sahrdayasims.ac.in/Dr-Jino-Johny-M/) serves as the Executive Director of Sahrdaya Institute of Management Studies (SIMS), where he also holds the position of Associate Professor. He contributes as a resource person for training programs, workshops, and seminars, helping individuals and groups achieve their full potential.

Fr. Jino earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management from the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of  Technology, Madras (IITM). During his Ph.D., he was awarded the prestigious DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) fellowship and served as an exchange scholar at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

He is an approved member of the Board of Studies in Human Resource Management at Providence Women’s College (Autonomous), Kozhikode, University of Calicut. He serves as an approved Ph.D. Joint Supervisor at Karunya School of Management, Karunya (Deemed to be University), Coimbatore.

Fr. Jino actively contributes to academia as a reviewer for Scopus-indexed journals, including Ethics & Behavior (Scimago Q2), and evaluates submissions for national and international conferences, such as the Society for Business Ethics Annual Meeting (Cambridge University Press) and the International Conference on Management Research (ICMR), IIT Madras. His research contributions are published in esteemed journals and books by Taylor & Francis, Routledge, and Elsevier, reflecting his dedication to advancing knowledge in his field.

He is a life member of National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM), member of Indian Academy of Management (INDAM), and Thrissur Management Association (TMA).