Digital Skills Help Restore Employers’ Faith In U.S. Universities

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A strong track record on teaching digital skills has helped restore employers’ faith in U.S. universities and halt a 10-year slide down international rankings.

The U.S. has taken the top three places in the annual graduate employability rankings, based on a survey of employers around the world.

And this year’s rankings show the U.S. has stopped a decade-long decline which saw the proportion of U.S. universities in the top 250 tumble by more than half.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology once again took top spot, followed by California Institute of Technology and Harvard University, with six U.S. universities in the top 10.

The post-Covid turnaround is partly down to the reputation of U.S. universities for producing graduates with advanced digital skills, according to Sandrine Belloc, managing partner of higher education consultancy Emerging, which carried out the survey.

More than nine in 10 (92%) of employers said universities should do more to increase digital skills, the survey found.

Digital skills are not the exclusive concern anymore of computer science faculties and their students, any university digital plan needs a transversal approach that includes all stakeholders,” she said.

The Global Employability University Ranking and Survey, now in its 12th year, asks employers around the world to rate more than 1,000 universities on their employability performance.

The U.S. dominated the early years of the rankings, with 50% of the top 250 universities in 2010, but a gradual slide saw this fall to 22% in 2020.

This year’s rankings, published by Times Higher Education, show the U.S. maintain that position, with 55 of the top 250 universities.

The top 10 (with last year’s position in brackets) are:

1 (1) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (U.S.)

2 (2) California Institute of Technology (U.S.)

3 (3) Harvard University (U.S.)

4 (4) University of Cambridge (U.K.)

5 (5) Stanford University (U.S.)

6 (8) University of Oxford (U.K.)

7 (6) University of Tokyo (Japan)

8 (9) National University of Singapore (Singapore)

9 (10) Princeton University (U.S.)

10 (7) Yale University (U.S.)

Source: Global University Employability Ranking and Survey, Top 10 universities for employability.

A total of 44 countries and regions are represented in the rankings, with countries making a first appearance this year including Egypt, Estonia and Colombia.

France has the second-highest number of universities in the rankings, 18, although only five are in the top 50.

Germany, with its emphasis on vocational learning making it traditionally a strong performer in employability rankings, is third with 17 institutions in the 250, followed by the U.K. with 14, one fewer than last year although its share of the total vote increased slightly on last year.

China has the fifth largest number of universities in the top 250, along with Canada, but its total of 11 is four more than four years ago with four in the top 50.

Digital skills were the most important single factor for employers, according to the survey, followed by graduate skills, subject specialization and work expertise, all rated higher than academic excellence and internationality.

Graduate employability is just one factor for students to consider when choosing a university, albeit an increasingly important one given the cost of higher education.

“When students and their parents are looking to choose a university, they want to know that their chosen institution is going to prepare them for the world of work,” said Seeta Bhardwa, editor of THE Student.

“This ranking helps students to find which universities around the world are teaching students the key skills they need to enter employment and succeed in the workplace.”

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