As Vision reported, York recently placed joint 15th on this year’s The Sunday Times University Guide, down from 13th the previous year. Unfortunately for York, this is not just a blip that has seen it slip down one particular league table, but a continuation of the lengthy and worrying slide down all of the country’s major rankings.
We tend to think of York as a top ten university, yet we also sit 15th in the Guardian’s 2012 rankings and 12th in The Complete University Guide league table, which gives us students very little ground to stand on when arguing such a point.
There is, of course, the argument that all these tables are a load of rubbish. I personally have never been asked how ‘satisfied’ I am with my university experience, but that doesn’t mean that future employers won’t use these rankings to assess the prestige of where you’ve just come from, and if York continues to slide that can only be a bad thing for you and me.
I believe that we students have a right to feel just a little bit angry at the University for this slip, for in many ways they have let us down. Students currently in their final year or those who have just graduated, those who joined a high-flying top ten university, suddenly find themselves without a top ten degree.
Meanwhile, it is hardly welcome news for the University’s newest additions; this doesn’t exactly seem like the ideal time to be joining York. It would be like finding yourself standing on a half-capsized vessel in the middle of the ocean, unable to jump ship whilst all the time sinking slowly into the depths. It must come as a weighty boot in the chops, a dampening blow of disappointment to counteract the feverish excitement of starting this particularly special chapter of life.
Upon taking a closer look at the rankings, it appears that it is often York’s graduate prospects that let it down; in categories such as academic research it is still a solid top ten institution. Why York students aren’t getting the jobs their degrees deserve, I don’t know, but the University’s higher powers should, and since they are repeatedly being shown where they are going wrong, they should be able to find a solution. After all, nobody is going to want to pay them £9,000 a year to attend a university that won’t get them the job they need to pay back their monstrous debts.
Every one of York’s students has put their faith (not to mention a lot of money) into this university to ensure themselves the best possible start in life in the real world. It is now the University’s job to save this sinking ship and prevent us all from drowning.