University Ranking

This is the continuation of the previous post on the QS ranking of universities in the world. In the first analysis, we looked at both public and private universities in the world and it was discovered that the number of public universities is more than the number of private universities. It was also revealed that the popular assumption that the USA is the major destination for international students was false that the major destination for international students is the United Kingdom.

This analysis looked at the factors used for rating each university and why MIT remains the first university in the world compared to the other universities and also King Fahd University was compared to MIT.

Let’s explore the metrics used to gauge the universities. Out of the 6 metrics that have been used, only 3 are present in this dataset.

• Research output — 20%
• Student-Faculty ratio — 20%
• International students — 5%

So, our analysis will account only for 45% of the survey methodology.

Analysis using research output between public and private universities revealed that public universities are more involved in research output compared to the private universities

Research output

Also, using research output against faculty count, the data revealed that public universities put together in the world have research output more than the private universities irrespective of the size

research output vs faculty count

The distribution of the student-faculty ratio indicates that on average in all universities whether public or private there are thirteen students per faculty with the least students per faculty being four and the highest number of students per faculty is forty-five

students vs faculty ratio

student-faculty ratio and research output

As stated in the first version of this analysis that the common destination for international students is not the United State of America but the United Kingdom, this is the analysis from 2017 to 2022 which reveals and supports the claim.

Destination of international students

Moving ahead to compare (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) MIT against (King Faisal University) KFU

Disclaimer: This analysis is not in any way to ridicule any university, it is just to analyze and gain insight into the important factors used by QS in rating universities and to see the factors that favor MIT in gaining the first position over the years.

Using the student-faculty ratio, it was shown that KFU has a higher number of students per faculty compared to MIT. On average KFU has a number of sixteen students per faculty while MIT has an average of four students per faculty

Students per faculty in both MIT and KFU

MIT has a higher number of international students compared to KFU

International student in both MIT and KFU

Also, MIT has a higher faculty count compared to KFU

Faculty count in both MIT and KFU

In conclusion, MIT was able to maintain this pace over the years and we can see how these factors favor their ranking. So, if other universities can as well look into these factors and improve on them, we can say that there is going to be a tremendous improvement in the ranking of their university. Having a higher number of international students, faculty count, and lower students per faculty plus an increase in research output will favor and leads to an increase in the ranking of universities that pays attention to all these factors.

The data set and the code for the analysis are available on the Github repository here.