Will I succeed in life - according to my university's rating?

As most of you probably know, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Science (MoEYS) is preparing a rating system for higher education institutions in Bulgaria. It is an attempt to objectively assess the level of education in our country and uses some principles of already existing European and international rankings. Evaluating quality is generally not an easy task, because it is related to subjective human perceptions. However, such classifications at least to some extent reflect a simplified reality, in this case – the Bulgarian one.

It was recently that the Ministry of Youth and Sports, together with the other organizations ¹ involved in the preparation of the system, discussed the changes planned for the 2012 edition. It is planned to use 50 different criteria, divided into 6 main categories. With their help, the excited parents of prospective students, prospective students or students themselves, and anyone interested, can find out with a few clicks how things stand on the "knowledge market".

Without going into detail (you can do your own research), we will look at the situation in the professional field of "Management and Administration" in terms of graduate employment. Let's choose the best and worst 3 universities in this regard.

Implementation is the 6th group of indicators of the system and has a weight of 30% of the final score of a university. However, it includes several interesting criteria related to both the labor market and the perceptions of the students themselves. Before we draw a few conclusions, here is the ranking and assessment by indicators (the methodology is available here, but generally speaking, with the exception of income, the scores are from 0 to 100, with 100 being the ideal university):

1. The average social security income of the leading universities is well above the national average (data are from 03.2010 and take into account graduates in the last 3 years);
2. The unemployment rate is around the natural rate at the top schools and lower than the national average even for the bottom schools in the ranking;
3. The realization in the relevant professional field, with few exceptions, is low;

The combination of the above three observations suggests that one major advantage of people with higher education is adaptability. They are more effective at finding jobs that provide a stable income, even outside their narrow specialization. This flexibility can only prove that the highly regulated labor market is one that has to catch up, despite frequent complaints about the lack of mobility among workers.

Another interesting observation from our small survey is related to the attitude of the students themselves: here we see that poorly performing universities create an impression in their graduates of future success, despite weaker implementation and higher unemployment rates. It seems that the large and bloated administration, slow procedures and rigidity of universities such as Sofia University and the UNWE quickly land graduates. In short, if you are a student at the latter, it is possible that waiting in lines and neglect from the staff have created the feeling that little depends on you in this sluggish system. At the same time, smaller universities make their students more cohesive and confident. And one more addition – technical error or reality, but according to the methodology used in the assessments, not a single student has created at least one important contact or friendship during their studies at Sofia University.

The results of the new edition of the system are expected in February 2012. I can only hope that it will incorporate the so-called input-output method and its applications. Known mostly by the private sector, in this method the input data will be the amount of the state subsidy that the respective university receives, and the result – all these indicators that the system measures. Thus, roughly speaking, it would become clear “where it makes sense to invest and where not”. The Minister of Finance and Education can wave a finger at ineffective universities and give a period of several years in which the autonomous structures can improve their situation. If this does not happen, the subsidy seems to be just money down the drain. Such a mechanism, if nothing else, would create at least a little competition between universities. Another question is whether it is at all possible for the same subject to be both a referee and a player in a football match and expect an impartial outcome. But, as I mentioned, this is the subject of another discussion.

In the meantime, each of us has the opportunity to reflect on the philosophical question "will I succeed in life" and compare the answer with the rating of our university. And as they say, to the winners - congratulations.

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1) Academic management from higher education institutions, representatives of student organizations, the National Agency for Assessment and Accreditation, the Bulgarian Industrial Chamber, BAS, Consortium "Open Society Institute-MBMD-Sirma", AdminSoft

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