MEDIA MONSTER: The Rise of Rankings

"Rankings of institutions of higher education.. .have been in existence since the late 19th century. Their origins can be traced as far back as 1865 to several European studies which promulgated the nature versus nurture debate. That is to say, whether heredity or environment was the determining factor in producing men of genius....lt was not until the 1980s, however, that educational rankings became highly visible to mainstream society. Why? It has been the media in all its many manifestations that has been responsible for bringing to the attention of everyone, not just academics, the power that rankings exert upon society as a whole. The 1980s witnessed a proliferation of annual publications of educational rankings studies in the United States and Canada.... North America is the most prolific producer of educational rankings."

—Lynn C.Hattendotf, associate professor of library and information services at the University of Illinois atChicago, in a 1996 research paperpresented at the 8th InternationalConference on Assessing Quality inHigher Education.