China: the new force to be reckoned with

China’s top universities could rival their Western counterparts in less than 25 years according to the president of Yale University.

Professor Richard Levin, Yale’s longest serving president, was speaking to the Guardian newspaper before a lecture at the Royal Society in London when he said that it was likely that Chinese institutions would rank in the world’s top ten universities within 25 years’ time, possibly squeezing out the more traditional Western institutions from the top spot in the rankings.

“In 25 years, only a generation’s time, these universities could rival the Ivy League,” he told the Guardian. “China and India… seek to expand the capacity of their systems of higher education… and aspire simultaneously to create a limited number of world-class universities to take their places among the best.”

He says that it is, “an audacious agenda” but that China, in particular, “has the will and resources that make it feasible.”

China has more than doubled the number of its higher education institutions in the last decade from 1,022 to 2,263.

Its government now spends 1.5% of its gross domestic product on higher education, and enrolment in degree courses has increased by more than 500% since 1997.

There are now more than five million Chinese students enrolled in universities and colleges throughout the country.

The growth of Chinese higher education comes as UK universities are facing fears that they may not be able to maintain their world-class reputation due to the recent higher education cuts introduced by the UK government.

More than £1 billion will be slashed from higher education spending over the next three years as part of a need to cut governmental spending.

There are two main systems on which universities are ranked: the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, along with the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

At the moment, the West dominates these, with US institutions making up the majority of the top 25 universities on either list.

Cambridge comes in second to Harvard, while Oxford, University College London, and the Imperial College London are all within the top five.

China’s highest ranking third level institution, the Tsinghua University, is ranked just within the top 50.

DCU currently isn’t ranked on either list.