A view from Ellen Hazelkorn, head of the Higher Education Policy Research Unit at the Dublin Institute of Technology and policy adviser to Ireland's Higher Education Authority: 

From a distance, the concerns about the plan are curious. While some are certainly valid, I wonder how American colleges did not try to create a system of their own, or at least to work with the government to establish one.

Efforts to compare colleges have become an increasingly influential factor in higher education since the mid-1980s. U.S. News & World Report initially identified the national interest, and two decades later, the Academic Ranking of World Universities recognized similar opportunities on a global stage.

The popularity of such rankings dumbfounds critics, who focus primarily on their methodological failings. But like them or not, we in academe have to admit that they have filled an information deficit and challenged perceptions of quality. They have sought to meet a growing global desire to better understand colleges and what they offer students.

Mounting concern about affordability, quality, and value in higher education has resulted in a proliferation in the range and number of players developing instruments to measure and assess quality. The European Commission will soon launch its own ranking system, U-Multirank. The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, has tested its Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes, admittedly to mixed reviews.

See the full text: at the Chronicle for Higher Education...