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Do rankings affect universities’ financial sustainability? – financial vulnerability to rankings and elite status as a positional good
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Baltaru, Roxana-Diana, Manac, Radu-Dragomir and Ivan, Miruna-Daniela (2022) Do rankings affect universities’ financial sustainability? – financial vulnerability to rankings and elite status as a positional good. Studies in Higher Education, 47 (11). pp. 2323-2335. doi:10.1080/03075079.2022.2061447 ISSN 0307-5079.
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WRAP-do-rankings-affect-universities-financial-sustainability-financial-vulnerability-rankings-elite-status-positional-good-Baltaru-2022.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 4.0. Download (1042Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2022.2061447
Abstract
University rankings envision a level playing field between competing universities, particularly in higher education (HE) systems regulated along market lines. Drawing on social stratification theory, we argue that rankings exacerbate, rather than alleviate, resource inequalities between universities with historically consolidated reputations (elite universities) and all other universities (non-elite universities). We test this argument empirically by assessing the role of elite status in moderating the effect of rankings on universities’ financial sustainability. Using a nationally representative longitudinal dataset with yearly organisational data on 102 English universities from 2008 to 2017, we find that the rank a university occupies in league tables affects all universities except elite universities, controlling for previous level of financial sustainability and institutional level differences. We further show that this relationship is partly explained by universities’ income from tuition fees. The findings document universities’ financial vulnerability to rankings in quasi-markets of higher education and the reinforcement of elite status as a positional good.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Subjects: | L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Universities and colleges -- Ratings and rankings, Universities and colleges -- Finance, Education, Higher -- Economic aspects -- Great Britain, Educational accountability | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Studies in Higher Education | ||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||
ISSN: | 0307-5079 | ||||
Official Date: | 28 April 2022 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 47 | ||||
Number: | 11 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 2323-2335 | ||||
DOI: | 10.1080/03075079.2022.2061447 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 26 May 2022 | ||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 27 May 2022 |
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