Those rankings give a 60% weighting towards research rather than teaching. It is unsurprising that the country with the only trillion-dollar GDP has the highest number of top universities, since research runs on money.

Half of that 60% is citations in research. Hardly surprising again that the Anglo universities get a guernsey there, given that English is the lingua franca these days, particularly in science. If a university only publishes in English, then it's going to get a wider citational audience as compared to splitting its output between French and English.

Ultimately, in the context of the discussion here, the concern is the quality of teaching, not the quality of research. While there is an interaction between the two, they are not synonymous.

The GDP and population of the EU is larger than that of the United States.

erm... right... but the EU doesn't collect taxes from all of that... they are individual countries.

Right, and individual universities that are supported by those countries.

What you should be argueing is that researchers are more densely distributed in top universities in the US, because in Europe researchers are less likely to jump to another country. Especially when they prefer to publish in their own language.

This may or may not be true.

Truth is, I at least and I think we in general are rather envious of the awesome top universities the US has.

But I think the US should be envious that we in Europe have our quality spread over the universities, and no matter what your parents' income or background is, or how much effort you put into highschool, you will always be able to attend a quality university.

I think that's worth not having the world's top universities.

Of the top 10 universities in those rankings, 3 are in the UK. The population of the UK is only 1/5 of that of the US.

The implication that universities in Western-Europe are 'mediocre' seems misguided.

I'd rather say in the US the problem is too much market.

And especially too much of the naive belief - used to his advantage by many a shrewd businessman - that cost equates quality.

Also, as already mentioned in other posts, many UK/EU universities do very well. I am currently at Oxford, and I would choose it over practically any American university.

And virtually all Western-European universities do way better than the bottom 3/4th of the American ones, which after all is what most Americans will encounter when they go to a 4-year 'college'.

Interesting point on the "too much market", thank you.

Am I right that there is a hidden assumption in there, saying "you're too stupid, we know better, let us protect you from making voluntary deals with other parties"? That sounds like a horrible premise for any kind of governance, and possibly a self-fulfilling prophecy. (hah! are we there yet? people under so many well-meant regulations that we're becoming irresponsibly naive and stupid?)

Or maybe, coming from Eastern Europe, I am just too allergic to the we-know-better-than-you-what-you-need central planning.

Re. "Oxford! Cambridge!" etc. -- the fact there are excellent universities all over the world doesn't affect (much less invalidate) the claim that the top universities are predominantly American.

I agree that the distribution of quality when it comes to universities is uneven -- but so what? I find that natural. This idea that all universities should somehow be uniform and on the same level makes me, once again, shudder. What's next? All cities should be the same size, so everybody has the same opportunity to find a job? Think of the poor village children!

These rankings are heavily weighted towards larger establishments, many metrics are based on volume! This artificially inflates mega-universities at the expense of the small elite establishments in France and Switzerland.