No country dominates any industry as much as the US dominates higher education. According to Shanghai Jiao-tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, for example, 17 of the world’s 20 best universities are in the US, with Harvard topping the list by a substantial margin.
The traditional explanation for this phenomenon — the US’ wealth, large population, generous research funding, widespread private philanthropy and ability to attract academics from around the world — is incomplete. Although the US boasts the world’s largest economy, it comprises only one-quarter of global GDP, and possesses roughly one-20th of the world’s population. And its support for research is not unique.
Moreover, according to the accepted explanation, large countries, such as France, Germany, Japan, and even China and India should also be represented at the top of global university rankings, but they appear only sparsely anywhere in such rankings, if even at all.
In fact, these countries lack a crucial piece of the puzzle: the US’ innovative governance model for higher education.
Harvard was established as a public institution in 1636 by the authorities of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Its value to Massachusetts is exemplified in the Commonwealth’s post-independence state constitution, ratified in 1780, which includes a section about the university’s function and boundaries.
When Harvard alumni dominated the Massachusetts legislature, the university was given support and consideration. However, in the 1840s, mass immigration, fueled by the Irish potato famine, altered the state’s demographic balance, enabling populists to gain control of the legislature.
Almost immediately, Harvard came under attack for being too elitist, too exclusive and too expensive. Even its curriculum was challenged. Over the next two decades, the state increasingly impeded Harvard’s functioning by, for example, refusing to release funds and obstructing the appointment of professors. This behavior culminated in 1862, when the legislature blocked a university president’s appointment.
In response, Harvard requested that it be placed “out of the reach of ordinary political strife and change” and into the “hands of alumni who have the interests of education most at heart.”
On April 29, 1865, this radical proposal scraped through the Massachusetts General Court (the state’s bicameral legislature), owing to intense lobbying and the goodwill generated by Harvard alumnis’ distinguished service for the Union during the Civil War. Since then, Harvard’s Board of Overseers has been controlled exclusively by alumni.
Inspired by Harvard’s success, other universities, starting with Yale University and the College of William and Mary, took similar action.
This “genuine American method,” as Charles William Eliot, Harvard’s longest-serving president, called it, became the norm not only for private universities, but also for public institutions, such as the University of Michigan and Purdue University, and even religious institutions like the University of Notre Dame and Duke University.
Today, 19 of the top 20 US universities in US News and World Report’s much-watched rankings are controlled by alumni (defined as 50 percent or more representation on the Board of Trustees). The only exception, the California Institute of Technology, has a board with 40 percent alumni representation. Of the top five, three (Harvard, Yale and Columbia) are managed entirely by alumni, and two (Princeton and Stanford) are under 90 percent alumni control. Alumni run the show even at public institutions such as Purdue (90 percent) and Michigan (63 percent). On average, alumni make up 63 percent of the boards of the top 100 US universities, both public and private.
In general, a higher percentage of alumni on the board is associated with a higher ranking, increased selectivity and a larger endowment. After all, no group cares more about a university’s prestige than its alumni, who gain or lose esteem as their alma mater’s ranking rises or falls.
Indeed, alumni have the most incentive to donate generously and to manage the university effectively. Given their intimate knowledge of the university, alumni are also the most effective leaders. Through alumni networks, board members can acquire information quickly and act upon it without delay.
All great universities are nonprofit organizations, created to administer higher education, which benefits society as a whole. However, US universities found a way to integrate competition’s benefits into the European concept of nonprofit, or so-called eleemosynary, corporations. The lack of profit does not diminish an alumni-dominated board’s incentive to compete for prestige by, for example, hiring distinguished faculty, accepting meritorious students and striving for athletic or artistic achievement.
Using alumni to infuse the benefits of competition into nonprofit institutions exemplifies the genius of US adaptation. Countries that aspire to compete with US universities should take note.
Shailendra Raj Mehta is a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and academic director of Duke Corporate Education, Duke University.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past