A university’s Overall Efficiency Ranking is an equally-weighted combination of its rankings in each of the eight Topic areas.
The intent behind it is to summarize the content of this site in a way that makes its central premise clear – that a failure to control Support Costs and administrative expense creates a variety of negative consequences in areas that are central to the Core Mission of the university.
It is certainly possible – in fact, common – for a university to perform well in some areas, relative to its peers, and poorly in others. However, there are reasons why some schools sit in the top-third of the summary ranking while others sit in the bottom-third.
Does a high ranking mean that a university is better than those below it, or a low ranking mean that a university is worse than those above it? Of course not – these are all fine universities.
What the numbers behind the rankings tell us is that the widespread, negative trends since 2001 mean that ALL universities have work to do if they are to achieve their potential and serve their students and provinces well.
The Overall Rankings show that some universities have more work to do than others.
There is a natural flow to the Topics. The first five expenditure-based Topic areas are the determinants of efficiency in pursuing the Core Mission. If a university’s initial Resource Allocation is inefficient or wasteful, or if it spends too much on administrative staff relative to academic staff, it pre-ordains weaker Core Mission performance.
That Core Mission performance is encapsulated in the final three Topic areas: Academic Commitment, Student Interests – Education, and Student Interests – Services & Support.
Download this table (opens in a new tab)