Exploration And Enlightenment Of University Rankings In The United States

University ranking, as one of the main forms of social evaluation in the United State, is an important means to assure the quality of higher education. Research on how to fully integrate various social resources, how to mobilize the enthusiasm of all sectors of society and how to take advantage of the result of rankings to make wide influence on higher education stakeholders play an important role on ensuring and improving the quality of higher education in our country as well as further improving the quality assurance system of Higher Education.University ranking in our country has achieved some success with the support of authorities though it showed up flaws due to a late start. University ranking originated in the United State and has been working as one of the most important means to assure the quality of higher education in the U.S when its pattern of assessment agents’ collaboration, indicators system and the results application became mature. This essay focused on university rankings in United State by means of systems analysis and case study which can help to deepen the understanding of assessment agents’ collaboration, indicators system, results application, etc. A comparative study helps us learn advanced experience in the U.S so as to develop and improve the quality assurance system of higher education based on the situation of China.Based on systems theory, this essay studied university rankings in the United State included the Quality Assessment of Doctoral Programs in the U.S, the U.S news & world report rankings and the university rankings of Washington Monthly in three dimensions: assessment agents, indicator system and results application, discovered that university rankings in United State had few characteristics such as the multi-agent collaboration pattern, the multi-level indicators, efficient results application and so on. In the end, the essay studied university rankings with comparisons between two countries and offered relevant proposals with the improvement of university rankings in our country.