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Why are German universities ranked relatively low on almost all college ranking lists but German engineers design and produce the best products in the world?

  • Germany has very advanced technology and great companies like BMW, Siemens, Philips, Bosch, Leica, etc. This cannot be true without a good educational system. Then how come German universities are rank relatively low globally?

  • Answer:

    Let's look at how these rankings are compiled Times Higher Education, Methodology: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2012-13/world-ranking/methodology: 30% of the ranking are due to research, and a further 30% due to the influence/quality of the research (citations). The Shanghai Ranking, Methodology: Quality of Faculty (Nobel prizes, Fields etc.) accounts for 40%. Research for another 40% (http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU-Methodology-2012.html#2) Let's look at the Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität in Munich which is the current top-ranked German institution in the THE ranking: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2012-13/world-ranking/institution/ludwig-maximilians-universitat-munchen We clearly see that the overall score is impacted by the three categories "Industry income", "Research", and "Citations". Let's look at Technische Universität München (TUM) which is the current top-ranked German institution in the Shanghai ranking: http://www.shanghairanking.com/Institution.jsp?param=Technical+University+Munich. It is out of debate that TUM is a powerhouse in research, however, continental institutions in Europe tend to not have an overly high number of Nobel Prize laureates affiliated with them (although Munich has 13) which is due to different factors of how research is bundled/centered. Hence, we'll see a couple main factors in Germany that do not "suit" the generalised methodology used in university rankings: Research: Top-level research in Germany is "outsourced" in national research organizations such as Fraunhofer, Max-Planck, Leibniz, etc. which exist as own entitities although they often have university affiliation. Research done in those institutions is often counted separately and is not necessarily counted when those rankings are compiled. Industry income: Germany does neither have a tradition of an alumni culture (yet) nor of large amounts of industry income. People - and the media - tend to be very suspicious with any source of third-party funding as it can be seen as a threat to the independence of research from a cautious point of view. Spread-out research: Top-level research is not necessarily bound to a few universities, however, government research funding is distributed in a way that high-level research is conducted at places which are rather unknown. Language: Albeit not relevant nowadays as most (if not all) research is conducted in English, it has been brought up as an argument/a justification that the high-level research used to be conducted and published in German and hence was not available to those who compile the rankings. Given the extent in which German universities embrace English for both teaching and research and attract international scholars and students, this argument is rather outdated. This is not a holistic response, but should show that the way a country's universities are represented in a generalised ranking approach mainly depends on the ranking methodology. Given the characteristics of the German research landscape with large chunks of research being conducted in research organisations, this shows how this affects the placement. [If you'd like, you can download THE's iPhone app and vary the influence of certain parameters in question. You'll find out that research has less influence of the ranking of German universities than explained in this response. Nonetheless, this answer should give an insight on how the university landscape in Germany looks like and differs from other countries] Edit/Addendum: Germany has apart from a classical university system a very strong "dual education" which is considered to be the foundation of its economic success and now being exported to Spain and likely to Greece as well. Dual education means an apprenticeship in collaboration with an employer, cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system. Furthermore, there is an intermediate step between apprenticeship and a college degree.

Wolfgang Xaver Merkt at Quora Visit the source

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It's very important to differentiate research and development from manufacturing. Germany (and Japan, another powerhouse) have a very well developed K-12 system which tracks students into categories including manufacturing. Well trained craftsmen do not need a college education to do an amazing job. The problem is that there is a great deal of conflation in some Anglo-Saxon countries between 'years of schooling' and 'any sort of ability'. They do not necessarily go hand-in-hand.

David Barber

Because QS takes into account the size and the cutting of grass fields, the number of football players and the quality of the snacks in fraternity groups meetings. Seriously tough, QS, ARWU and almost every university ranking is exstensive. It means that if an university is twice as big, it gets twice as many points. Thus the huge US institutions, divided in campuses with large funding money and huge number of employees conquer the rankings by sheer size. In Europe there is a trend of dividing in small institutions. When I studied in Germany there were 4 high-ranked university in 40 km radius: Darmstadt (where I was), Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Mainz, and several other non-ranked. If you merge all of these you get a super-institute that has similar funding, similar number of employees, and similar ranking of the one of Ivy League institutions. In Paris there 13 universities and 3 Research Labs, merging those in 1 (or  2), like it was at the beginning of the century, you get something which is far more ranked than anything now. http://www.lamsade.dauphine.fr/~bouyssou/BillautBouyssouVinckeScientometrics.pdf If you make a ranking normalized by the funding, Italy is undoubitly on Top, with the Scuola Normale (a top 0.1% institute based on the French system, with only a handful of few dozens of selected academics and students) that is more than 10 time more performing than Cambridge and more than 20 times more performing than Harvard on the dollar! http://www.roars.it/online/classifica-arwu-14-universita-italiane-meglio-di-harvard-e-stanford-come-value-for-money/comment-page-1/#comments The reason why we don't do it in Europe, is that everything is more institutionalized, thus academic independence don't come with flexible employment rules or funding, but by properly micromanage relatively small institutes. Since the institutes are generally publicly funded, we cannot have a http://www.thebestschools.org/blog/2013/11/25/10-highest-paid-college-professors-u-s/ and too competitive salaries to take decisions with the flexilibity and freedom of a CEO. Judging by results we do not need to have! But we have to convince people by offering freedom which comes only in a small and flexible protected academic environment.

Andrea Idini

Because U.S. institutions are unparalleled in terms of funding and talent. The effects of a big endowment materialize in many metrics, for instance the faculty to student ration (great for learning and accounts for 20% of QS' ranking) or the possibilities for students and profs to do cutting edge research (great for research output). Furthermore, the U.S. talent pool is much, much bigger. Not only is the country four times the seize of Germany, it also attracts most of the best students and professors from around the world. Most U.S. institutions cherry pick the best Germans, which leads to a brain drain at local universities and boosts American research output even further. Also, don't forget the largest brain drain in German history- WW2. Jewish students and professors are a major driving force in American academica. Lastly, 40% of the survey is about academic peer review. For too long, German universities were inward looking, so a lot of the old prestige has been lost and subjects, previously dominated by Germans (from philosophy to physics) has been surrendered to Harvard and others.

Markus Maier

In Germany, most high-level research is done at government research institutes, not universities.

Sean Bard

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