The University of Texas ranked 30th in a list of the top 100 universities in the world released July 1 by The Center for World University Rankings.
The rankings attempted to measure the quality of education and training for students and faculty, according to the center’s website. The first ever rankings from the center considers seven factors, including educational quality, faculty quality, alumni employment, patents, publishing, faculty research citations and influence. UT’s most influential factor was the quality of faculty, stemming from the number of faculty members who have won various honors, including the Nobel Prize, Turing Award, Wolf Prize and Pulitzer Prize. The same rankings show the University to rank 22nd in the United States overall and 8th in U.S. public universities.
Of the top 100 universities listed, 58 schools were located in the U.S.
Allen Bard, a chemistry and biochemistry professor, was awarded the 2008 Wolf Prize in Chemistry for creating single-molecule spectroscopy and imaging, a new field of science. Bard said UT has fostered a great place for education and research.
“It has been a great experience to see UT move up in rankings and quality through the years, and I’m very pleased to have helped during my 54 years at UT,” Bard said. “Many others, including members of my group and my colleagues in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department and elsewhere at UT, have been major contributors as well.”
However, Bard said he does not think the new ranking will help him get future funding for research and that “it has been less inspiring to see how poorly state higher education is treated in Texas by the legislature and the attempted political interference in university operations by those unqualified in academic affairs.”
Mathematics professor Luis Caffarelli is also a recipient of the Wolf Prize and said UT should be proud of this accomplishment and continue to strive for improvement.
“My work is in mathematical equations that describe many phenomena in our daily life, from fluid flows and the deformation of an elastic membrane to optimal strategies in game theory, [and] relates to many areas of science,” Caffarelli said. “Being at UT, a superb place for science and engineering, has been a very important factor in the development of many of my ideas.”
Journalism senior Bianca Moragne said she thinks the ranking will make her degree more valuable.
“I think having a degree from a school that is not only known nationally but also globally will definitely help me stand out when applying for future jobs,” Moragne said. “I’m really glad I picked this school, and after hearing about this new ranking, I’m even more excited to graduate from such a reputable school.”
Other Texas universities on the list include UT Southwestern Medical Center, which ranked 29th, Rice University at 57th, Texas A&M at 73rd and UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at 96th.
According to the center’s website, its ranking is different from other worldwide academic surveys, because some are greatly influenced by research indicators and opinion-based surveys. The Academic Rankings of World Universities ranks UT at 38th, the Times Higher Education ranks UT at 29th and the QS World University Ranking Survey ranks UT at 76th.
The center states that its university rankings differ from these by measuring the quality of education and training of students as well as the prestige of the faculty, alumni and the quality of their research, without relying on surveys and university data submissions.
According to the center’s website, the indicators used to quantify these aspects are chosen to be robust against manipulation, making them as authentic as possible.
