University of London in your opinion

Hey I agree with you. So let's say if want to work aboard after my graduation then a degree from one of those colleges in UOL would get me a job since the degree is well-known and more recognised.

yay! thats wot I think at least... so ur going to UOL? which one? (oh, we agreed that the college name doesnt matter, but, just out of curiosity )

Hey I agree with you. So let's say if want to work aboard after my graduation then a degree from one of those colleges in UOL would get me a job since the degree is well-known and more recognised.

The SAS gets overlooked, as its only postgrad. But it's a valuable asset for London.

University of California has loads of universites as part of it, which are highly prestigous too.

The sheer range and quality of peer institutions at every level gives the UoL colleges a great advantage in attracting students.

LSE
Imperial
UCL
Kings
SOAS
QM
RH
LBS
Birkbeck
Goldsmiths
SAS

As well as the smaller institutes and medical schools. The level of quality is truly phenomenal and the range of student types - from foreign blue bloods at LSE to working londoners at birkbeck - is unequalled in its diversity.

The University ofCalifornia is a great role model for the University of London: the way it integrates different types of college, for instance, so that a veriety of needs is catered for, without any dilution of its high quality and research standing.

I think the federal university model is quite common in continental Europe. Paris is probably the most famous example and i can think of several others which have student numbers to dwarf even Londons 100,000 odd.

Mind you, on a side-note, the most worrying aspect of such rankings is the low recogniton levels for German institutions. Like it or not Germany, over the past 150 years, has been the academic crucible of the modern world, not Harvard, not Oxbridge: much of what has happened in universities originated in Germany, from Ranke establishing history as an academic profession to discoveries in nuclear physics, to the creation of specialist research departments etc etc. Maybe it's because Germany doesn't have a star system among universities: quality is sprerad widely, we are told: there is no Ivy League, no G5, no Russell Group, no Golden Triangle, no Oxbridge...so loeague table compilers tend to blank the place...Has anybody got any ideas or data on this?

I think youve got it right when you suggest the 'problem' with the German system is its lack of a true elite - something which the current administration hope to rectify with plans recently being drawn up for the creation of 10 new elite institutions. I think Schroeder described it as a plan for a German Ivy League.

Have you got a link for this information? It sounds really interesting.

In my post I mangled my meaning as it were; I didn't plan to suggest that the lack of an elite was the problem, if anything maybe that was the strength of the system in the past: power was decentralised among a group of outstanding universities, with no obvious outright 'winners' preening themselves and building up media networks to tell them how glamorous they are (in a way that's what happens in the States, where, once you get past the media fixation with Harvard, there are 20-25 universities that are serious players and that people are knowledgeable about and proud of - I mean even their specialist military colleges, like the Virginia Institute, produce serious academic research across a range of fields).

Details of the plan can be found here and its for 5 universities rather than 10.



From what ive read the higher education system in Germany is in something of a quandry at the moment. The standards are maintained to a reasonable level, almost inevitably, because of the level of development and literacy found in the german nation and population but the quality of universities has been falling for some time. I understand the academics are even more appallingly treated over there than they are here which leads to abuse of contracts by the academics themselves - for example an increasingly common practice is the 'blockseminar ' whereby a lecturer or professor will do an entire terms worth of teaching in a single weekend before retiring to private research for the remaining months of the term.