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Posted on 03/19/2026 6:24:07 AM PDT by karpov
Earlier this year, a New York Times report described a dramatic reversal in global university rankings. In the early 2000s, American institutions dominated the tables measuring scientific output. Seven of the top 10 were U.S. schools, led by Harvard University. Only one Chinese institution, Zhejiang University, appeared in the top 25.
Today, the map looks very different. Chinese universities dominate the upper tiers of rankings produced by groups such as Leiden and the Nature Index. Commentators talk about a new academic world order. Some declare American decline. Others announce Chinese supremacy. Both conclusions rest on a shaky premise: that modern rankings measure what we think they measure.
They do not.
What changed is not that American universities forgot how to do research. Despite years submerged in identity politics and DEI nonsense, their output is higher than it was two decades ago. Instead, the alteration concerns how rankings define excellence and how efficiently certain systems learned to exploit that definition. Today’s tables lean heavily on two variables: how many papers a university produces and how often those papers are cited. That formula rewards scale, coordination, and relentless production. It punishes reflection, risk, and dissent. It also favors countries that can mobilize research as they might a factory line, scaling scholarship the way factories scale production. No country fits that description better than China, which has built exactly the system that global rankings now reward.
China pours state money into selected disciplines, especially those that yield quick publications. It pressures scholars to publish in English-language journals. It nudges citation networks into tight loops in which researchers cite one another and lift entire institutions at once. What looks like an organic rise of genius is closer to bureaucratic optimization. The result looks like academic ascent but behaves like a rise in industrial output.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
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As are us news rankings and most of that stuff.
The only white collar employees I’ve ever fired were from Ivy League schools.
This article seems to be arguing that American universities aren’t as bad off as the Times rankings make them out to be and Chinese universities aren’t as highly ranked as the Times rankings make them out to be. I agree on the Chinese rankings - China lies and cheats blatantly. But US universities are in a lot of trouble. On the basis of cost vs. educational value, they rank very poorly. There is a real question about whether most young people - most - would be better off going to a trade school or community college rather than a traditional four-year college let along graduate school (which is completely useless for most kids). If you take cost into consideration, US universities rank low. Probably lower than most European universities.
Unfortunately, many of our Universities have turned into high dollar scams.
Chinese graduate students take every USA science and technology idea straight back to China.
Grand theft.
For some unknown reason, USA government officials, USA college professors, and USA college donors, do not seem to care.
It has become somewhat questionable to declare that Chinese STEM students in the US take American technology back to China.
The reason is the STEM faculty at US universities are often Chinese themselves. So Chinese technology learned at US universities is taken back to China.
As for the article overall, it is leaning hard on research. Not teaching.
Wait until the AI research-paper factories really get going.
Not only do the Chinese graduate students take ideas straight back to China, the Chinese take our books, translate them and publish them so they can avoid higher royalties. They do pay royalties to American authors but it’s pennies on the dollar compared to what I get from my American publisher.
Knock me over with a feather...
If all the best and most original research now takes place in China, all the best Chinese students and professors would be clamoring to return to China.
Probably pay scale.
It’s dangerous to risk immersion in a presumption of American exceptionalism.
Note that pay scale comes from $39T in debt.
For faculty, perhaps.
Very little USA pay scale for thousands of Chinese graduates chasing a MS or Doctorate.
I have not studied USA industrial production versus Chinese industrial production for at least five years.
Around 2020, China and the USA had roughly equal total industrial production, with one glaring exception...
China had 4X times as many industrial employees as the USA!
China is not a nation.
China is a geographic location that is owned and operated by the Chinese Communist Party.
Quite similar to the Religious Dictatorship in Iran, now that I think about it.
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