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Opinion
Richard K Vedder

Research Prowess of U.S. Colleges Is Exaggerated

U.S. college presidents make no apologies for their schools’ support for research. After all, American institutions dominate global surveys of universities, and most lists put a big emphasis on research accomplishments.

Of the 20 top schools for 2012 on the widely used Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings, for example, 17 are American. Colleges are “carefully evaluated using several indicators of research performance.”