Long and Hard Fall of Higher Education

Recently published Shangai list of the world's best universities has again turned the
attention of the public to rank-list of colleges which has very accurately and promptly
recorded objective of improving and declining higher education institutions in the
world. The criteria are very clear and measurable - number of graduated students
and professors winner of Nobel prizes or Fields medals, the number of researchers
whose scientific articles are regularly quoted in other scientific publications, the
number of most esteemed published in scientific journals such as Nature and
Science, the number of articles that are indexed in the most important scientific
bases and academic success in relation to the number of permanently employed
teachers.

Among the top 100 world universities, 37 are from the United States, 17 from the UK,
7 from Australia, 5 from Canada, 4 from the Netherlands and Japan, 3 from
Switzerland, Hong Kong and Germany, 2 from Denmark, Korea, France, Singapore
and Sweden, and 1 from Finland, Ireland, Israel and New Zealand. Top-10 American
universities are Harvard University, which is already the second best year, and Yale
University, which is already the second year in a row on the second place. Followed
by the British Cambridge and Oxford University, is the fifth California Institute of
Technology, that was last year on the 7th place, the sixth Imperial College London
who has in relation to the previous year fell by one place (he was fifth), the seventh
University College London (last year was the ninth), the eighth is the University of
Chicago who was compared to the previous year dropped to one place (he was
seventh), the ninth Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which last year was the
tenth, while the tenth place Columbia University who last year was the 11th place.

If you take into account the population of each country in relation to the number of
top universities, it is shown that, although the U.S. has the highest among the 500,
one comes to every 1,900,000 Americans, in Sweden with 11 universities among the
500 best one comes to every 822 thousand inhabitants. And is similar to New
Zealand, Finland and Switzerland, and Norway are close and Denmark (1,160,000
and 1,370,000 inhabitants).

The only university from the area of former Yugoslavia that has reached this level, the
list of 500 best is the University of Ljubljana, which took 446th place in the world. Not
a single other universities from these regions is not. Ambitious students from the
countries of former Yugoslavia, if You want to study at one of prestigious Universities
'in the vicinity', you'll choose from 5 Austrian, 2 Czech, 1 Hungarian, 4 Greek, 14
Italian, or 5 Turkish universities, which were found on the list of 500 best .

Although almost all the Balkan countries, except Montenegro, speaking strictly
statistically, have quite enough residents for at least one prestigious university, this
has still not happened. Higher education without which, all agree in principle, there is
no development nor a step forward in the contemporary world, activity that was
systematically suppressed in whole region for the past 20 years to another plan that
would be found at the bottom of a food chain, together with textile industry, culture
and the a tanners. Regions with the lowest percentage of highly educated residents
in Europe won't change that sadly status for a long, long time. Namely, between the
proclamations and strident promises on the one hand, and the gray reality on the
other, there's enormous sink hole. The average resident in the Balkans, noted
accurate statistics, there are approximately 8 and a half years of education. Oh, if
only international scientific status of Balkans universities would depend on amount of
national flame…. In high education there's no stagnation: you either grow or fall.
Under that criterion, Balkan universities definitely fall. Long and hard.