I'm confused, so Harvard is more reputable than Oxford?

there are at the very least similar but more likely superior alumni lists at oxford and cambridge (far more nobel prize winners, prime ministers and presidents of far flung nations, writers, industrialists, etc etc), not to mention Harvard (which suffers the disadvantage of being half a millenium younger). Anyway you seem to ignore that I am talking about the present age, so when Balzac, let alone Aquinas, came into the equation is totally irrelevant. I talk of present affairs, a time in which it is generally believed the french university system is a mess in need of reform.

Aside from the fact that you seem to be the only person who promotes this opinion, if the university were of such a high standard but only suffers in rankings due to its having been split up, why are none of the individual institutions referred to as leaders with respect to their specific areas of interest?

Among today's leading academic voices in all fields from science to law, among the political hierarchy (not just domestically but on an international level) and the business world, a very high proportion of people studied at oxbridge or ivy league institutions. aside from leading french academics, politicians and business leaders, I cannot think of many who went to the Sorbonne, and the French are not exactly playing an interesting role thus far either in academic, political, artistic, etc etc fields in this increasingly globalised world

Aha, so then they have basically unfairly reduced arguably the best University in the world to a dump.

It's kind of sad because you could if you wanted split most universities into 80 colleges. But apparently you only do this when in danger of having to admit a French University is better than you. Total nonsense the whole thing.

They are 4 colleges, who are you trying to kid, the Sorbonne is the best University in the world.

the fact is that the french are in decline.

Why else would you have a president wh was voted in by virtue of a vow for reform in most areas of french life - inlcuding universities

This is probably going to read as typically American, but most of the population in my country is under the impression that Oxford is the reigning institution of higher learning. Apparently, from discussing this topic with my friend from Imperial College and reading some of the posts in here, most of the population in the US is wrong. In fact, so wrong that we couldn't even get the college that is considered number 1 in the UK right; Cambridge. Actually most of the population has probably not even heard of Cambridge but will gasp in amazement at the mention of Oxford.

But then again, as I attend Harvard and have visited Oxbridge, I can safely concede that I have no idea why we're considered number one either. I mean, yes we have brilliant professors and strong academics but it is our huge endowment that keeps us strong as we pump millions of dollars into the Harvard brand name. That and we have a really kick ass Business school.
Secretly, I think that Princeton is really the best school in America with Stanford a close second.

Other than that I was really impressed with the British system and with the universities your country has; Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, UCL, Kings.

what in numbers ???



reform ?? wtf ?? does that mean that the it ruins the univeristy

The Sorbonne isn't anything special really. It's just a regular university. It's les grandes écoles that are the better universities in France...

Why?

See this is cultural bigotry really, dressed up, because a country doesn't appear on your radar so often because they speak French you dismiss them. It sounds to me you need to do some research on France. I mean I'm an Englishman through and through, but I don't think our Universities are the best. top 10 yeah.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the river; where I grew up someone going to Oxford would have been shouted from the roof tops while those Harvard bound would have gotten a hearty congratulations, but not much more. Over in the UK, the opposite is the case.
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why what?

i suggest you read a good quality french publication and perhaps glean something from the internet of a couple of international newspapers and magazines on a regular basis. you appear to be almost hopelessly out of touch

Well apparently you're culturally ignorant, because if you were so concerned with French Higher Education, you'd realise that it's the "grande ecoles" which are the most important universities, perhaps the equivalent of Oxford and Cambridge. Anyone can go to La Sorbonne if they score high enough in their Bac, but to get into the Grandes écoles is a damn sight harder. La Sorbonne is parhaps UCL or Bristol, but it is definitely nothing particularly special.