Making the Case for a Strong Public Research University: The University of Kentucky Top-20 Business Plan

Over the past 30 years, numerous national and international ranking systems of universities have emerged. Each claims to assess the quality of institutions of higher education. Several of these ratings are published annually, and the most lucrative and dominant publication in the USA is the US News & World Report’s (USNWR) ‘America’s Best Colleges’ edition. The commercial nature of the USNWR rankings makes them easily accessible to a broad public and thus provides strong incentives for institutions to strengthen their ratings. Although many researchers question the measurements used by various rating organizations, there is a consensus that institutional rankings reproduce a hierarchy that is already in place. However, status in the rankings has come to define the terms of the higher education marketplace (Carey, 2006; Clarke, 2007: 59–70; Harvey, 2008: 187–207).