The University of Michigan was one of three U.S. public universities ranked near the top in the QS World University Rankings for 2015.
U-M was ranked 30th among more than 800 colleges and universities in the world.
A change in the methodology used by QS World Rankings makes it impossible to compare this ranking to the 2014 ranking.
“After a careful analysis, it is not possible to compare this year’s ranking to last year,” said Glenna Schweitzer, associate vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs and executive director of the Office of Budget and Planning. “Institutions that are very strong in life sciences and natural sciences, like U-M, now rank lower than in previous years.”
According to QS, the methodology refinements relate to the “citations per faculty” indicator, which comprises 20 percent of the overall ranking score awarded to institutions. This ranking component aims to reflect the influence achieved by each university in the research world, relative to the size of its faculty.
The QS World University Rankings, launched in 2004, are based on six factors: academic reputation, employer reputation, student-faculty ratio, citations per faculty, proportion of international faculty and proportion of international students.
U-M was one of three U.S. public universities making the top 30, a list that also included 12 private U.S. universities: The other public U.S. universities in the top 30 include the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles.
