by Danny Byrne MIT consolidates its dominance of the technical disciplines by topping the 2011 QS World University Ranking® for Mechanical, Aeronautical & Manufacturing Engineering, ahead of Cambridge and Harvard. The department of mechanical engineering was one of MIT’s original departments at its foundation in 1861, and continues to go from strength to strength. The

by Danny Byrne MIT tops the table in the first ever international subject ranking for Computer Science and Information Systems, ahead of Stanford and Cambridge. The US dominates the top of the table, with Berkeley and Harvard also in the top five, and Caltech, UCLA and Carnegie Mellon joining them in the top ten. The

By Danny Byrne MIT tops the inaugural QS World University Rankings® for Chemical Engineering, with Cambridge, UC Berkeley, Oxford and Stanford joining it in the top five. California’s status as a research hub was underlined with four of the state’s universities in the top ten (Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA and Caltech), while Imperial College London joined

by John O’Leary, a member of the QS Academic Advisory board How many different ways are there to assess global higher education? The QS subject rankings, the first of which will appear on April 5, represent one new way, giving students an international guide to quality in individual subjects for the first time. The first

by Danny Byrne, Editor of Topuniversities.com “We should not, as academic institutions, abandon academic rigour, seduced by the spotlight of international rankings.” So argued Malcolm Grant, Vice Chancellor of University College London, at the Going Global Conference in Hong Kong earlier this month. Most intelligent commentators recognise that university rankings only capture certain aspects of

* Danny Byrne is the editor of www.topuniversities.com and of the QS Top Grad School Guide. Anybody who has been following the debate surrounding world university rankings in the last year or so will have raised an eyebrow at the recent publication by Times Higher Education of a ranking based entirely upon academic assessment of

by Danny Byrne The plot thickens. All over the news in the UK today is the story of 681 Oxbridge academics coming togethether to sign a “strongly worded” letter demanding a public enquiry into the proposed changes to fees and funding set forth in the UK. The full text of the letter, along with the

This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who particularly enjoys writing about online universities.  Questions and comments can be sent to: [email protected]. Throughout the recession, for the past several years, some states, like California, were labeled big losers, while other states, namely Texas, were revered as models of conservative fiscal policy. Led by long-standing Governor Rick Perry,