Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum begin their recently published book (That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011) with stating President Obama’s words: “It makes no sense to China to have better rail system than us, and Singapore having better airports than us. And we just learned that China now has the fastest supercomputer on Earth – that used to be us” (November 3, 2010).
Indeed, currently many other countries might impress the world with better achievements in different areas. For example, nowadays not American but overseas schoolchildren usually win international mathematic Olympiads. However, I think, the best American universities are still the best in the world. In my opinion the following eleven factors contribute to this situation.
First, huge financial capacities of the leading American universities. Famous American private universities accumulated astonishing financial resources. The endowments of Harvard ($32 bln.), Yale ($19,4 bln.), Princeton ($17,1 bln.), Stanford ($16,5 bln.), MIT ($9,9 bln.) and other major universities may impress anyone and far ahead of any endowments of the foreign universities. This is the main source of building up educational and research capacities.
Second, well developed infrastructure: impressive libraries, class and sport facilities, informational technologies, free Internet accesses, campuses, etc. Of course, this factor is connected with the financial resources of the universities.
Third, many American universities attract talented foreign professors and students. Currently there are about 700.000 foreign students are in the American universities and colleges, and some of very best of them will join their alma mater as research assistances, scholars and professors. So many high-achievers among foreign professors and students are part of intellectual resources of the American universities.
Fourth, independence of the universities. Even state-supported universities are independent in their everyday activity.
Fifth, high academic standards in the leading universities. It is well-known, that the American universities produce the biggest number of Nobel Prise winners in sciences, medicine and economics.
Sixth, academic freedom. Nobody can fire tenured professors because of their beliefs, social positions, political preferences or academic interests. This creates the atmosphere supportive to the academic quest.
Seventh, the universities tend to combine the educational and research activities, and those professors and students who do research, get the most support.
Eighth, the best universities have strong connections with the business and industry, support innovation in many sectors of economy and benefit from this relations.
Ninth, richness of the students’ life: the universities have many clubs and societies for their students, and the students can do variety of extracurricular activities, publish independent newspapers, etc. Sport is very popular among students, and universities spend a lot of money for building and maintaining the sports facilities.
Tenth, most universities have positive public images, and working or studying there are considered as a prestigious activity in a society. This helps to bring a high calibre people to the universities, and to increase the universities’ influence in a society. From time to time some professors go to the Government for a work and then come back to the universities, and this creates important link between these two institutions.
Eleventh, strong alumni relations. This gives the universities not only a large material but also a huge moral support.
Obviously, not all American universities are equal in their educational and research qualities. In fact there are thousands of a little known universities and colleges there. Some people say that the American universities would be the next economic bubble. I don’t think that will happen, at least in the foreseeable future, since there is a growing demand for the university education worldwide and we may expect the increase of the applications from all over the world for studying in the best American universities. However, in a longer term we might expect growing international competition in some specialised areas.
Alisher Faizullaev 