What made the success of American universities, always first in Shanghai Jiao Tong ranking of the best institutions in the world? Alumni, answers Shailendra Mehta, academic director of Duke Corporate Education and professor at the Indian Institute of Management.


American universities have no rivals. As ranked by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the top 20 universities in the world, 17 are American and the finding is no different if you look at the top 50. Many mysteries surround the Shanghai ranking, albeit controversial, but that refers to the global level.

Why are American universities as remarkable? And why is Harvard University systematically and continuously topped the list? While it is generally accepted that takes centuries to a university reaches a worldwide reputation for excellence, how is it that so many American universities have reached international level in just a few decades (Stanford, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, the University of Michigan, and many others)? In 1991, Henry Rosovsky [Professor Emeritus and Harvard University dean, note] summarized the reasons that would explain this success: the wealth of the United States, their demographics, their philanthropic tradition, their immigration policy which, immediately before and after World War II, welcomed and pampered many eminent foreign, y including Europeans fleeing their country of origin. He also mentions the students and faculty recruitment policy - fiercely competitive - and legal structure that makes presidents and college deans responsible to a board of directors. Other researchers (Aghion, Dewatripont et al. *) Emphasize the autonomy of universités.Ce enjoy are interesting reasons, but they do not explain everything. Many higher education institutions in the world have reproduced some of these practices. Among them, the centralization of credits allocated to research, validation promotions and tenure professors by their peers, a highly competitive recruitment process, a special support to some outstanding properties carefully selected, etc. Yet no university has managed to break the near monopoly of American universities.
In fact, American universities have reached their level of excellence rapid and massive, long before the success factors identified by Rosovsky, Aghion, Dewatripont and others are part of the American context. For example, large-scale financing mechanisms research centers have been set up at the time of World War II. It is interesting to note that when Rockefeller wanted to create a large university, it has not inspired Oxford or Cambridge, who were the traditional models of the colonial era, but Harvard, who had to 'Even then, a reputation for excellence. On the other hand, the great scientists who had fled Hitler's Germany have chosen US universities because they were already famous. Albert Einstein did not make famous Princeton, he chose Princeton's Institute of Advanced Studies, it is because the university was already known that there were already lectured him and that had awarded an honorary doctorate.
So what is the key factor that has allowed US universities, particularly Harvard, to rise to the forefront of higher education and the recently founded universities to achieve or exceed the level and reputation of many older universities? Here we must emphasize the decisive role played by the network of alumni.
These successes are the result of an innovation that was to entrust the management control of a board of directors composed in a greater or lesser proportion of alumni that designates the Latin word alumni.

It is this system that enabled at the same time to ensure that these universities autonomy, vision, generous funding and serenity. The role of these former students to the board has been little studied so far, although the role of independent directors has already been highlighted in particular Rosovsky. And it is true that the American school administrators are actually independent and they often serve as a buffer between the school and the policy, for example.
The percentage given in the table indicates the percentage of alumni who sit in their university board. With one exception, this proportion is everywhere greater than 50%, it is 100% in three of the first five ranking, the other two in excess of 90%. In other words, 19 of 20 of the best American universities are entirely in the hands of their former students! They are also non-profit institutions. We can conclude that it is the combination of these two factors, and permanently permanence of excellence.
This is also true for the first 100 universities. Wealth and reputation of a university is directly correlated with the importance of the part played by the alumni in its management. This applies to all schools, whether public or private, religious or not. This system was inaugurated by the State of Massachusetts, which in 1865, for the first time officially entrusted the management of the university to alumni - Harvard was so far a state university! Harvard quickly reached an international level of excellence as many US private and public universities were quick to adopt the same management system.

It is interesting to note that the US has borrowed from Europe this form of nonprofit governance (philanthropic institutions) infusing a dimension of competition. The model is based on the principle that it gives control to those who matter most to the institution, in this case to its former students who then heart to students and teachers in competition, ensure both facilities as curriculum and research. In this sense, they are responsible for funding that achieves all these goals of excellence. All these responsibilities are symbolized by a "sheepskin" they are clothed symbolically lifetime!