Quality of Higher Education as a Social Construct: Formation and Transformation Through Accreditation, Ratings, and Societal Expectations

Abstract

This article presents a different interpretation of the practice of imposing university rankings and ratings as the main tool for assessing the quality of higher education. The article assumes that the quality of higher education is a social construct whose meaning arises from the interaction between the main stakeholders in the higher education system. These are primarily students and their families, employers, teachers, university administrators, and public authorities. Therefore, the quality of higher education not only cannot exist, but also cannot be understood and interpreted outside the specific interactions that take place in and in relation to university life. This article thus argues that standardized university rankings based on a set of quantifiable indicators cannot be an objective way of presenting the quality of higher education, because this leads to privileging the perspective of only one of the parties involved—that of the funding body. Furthermore, turning ratings and rankings into a key policy tool may reinforce the corporatization of universities, deepen existing inequalities in the system and among graduates, weaken the public role of universities, and block their ability to create reflective knowledge that they can use to solve problems in local communities and challenge precisely the privileged, empowered viewpoints.