A Beijing university has been made number one in global rankings for computer science and engineering, China Daily reports, beating the celebrated Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) into second place.
Over 90 percent of students at Tsinghua University study Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM) subjects, and it’s often described as “China’s MIT.” Now it has been rated top in the prestigious US News ranking. Two other Chinese schools make the Computer Science Top 10, Hubei’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Zhejiang University.
The news will be of interest to senior students at Beijing’s international schools, most of whom will have an eye on a place in a US college, or perhaps studying in the UK, Canada, or Australia. Over half a million Chinese students go to study overseas each year, with that number expected to continue rising. While most will eventually return home, China is keen to increase the international status of its universities, and has been investing heavily in its elite institutions.
Quartz.com sounds a note of caution about the engineering rankings, pointing out that Tsinghua gains on the quantity of published papers, but when quality alone is considered it falls behind western universities. However, the Times Higher Education World Ranking, published last month, saw all Chinese universities increase their standing compared to last year. Phil Baty from THE said: “The rise of China in this year’s table is remarkable and demonstrates the ways that the global higher education landscape is changing… China’s leading universities are truly now part of the global elite and overtaking prestigious universities in the US, UK and Europe.”
