Why the next Harvard will come from Asia?

Oxford and Cambridge were the finest universities in the 19th Century - a time when Great Britain was the economic powerhouse of the world. Fast forward to the 20th century and we see Harvard and Stanford having dominated world rankings - again at a time when American economy was at its zenith. So if the 21st Century is going to be an Asian century, its universities and business schools are going to follow it to the top.

This fundamentally will work because fast growing & powerful economies have a tremendous appetite for talent which leads to high remunerations for university graduates in these areas. This in turn allows their universities to justify a higher tuition fees without an increase in costs. The proceeds from this gets chaneled towards attracting talented faculty thereby increasing the intellectual capital of these universities and thereby their rankings. The increased proceeds are also chaneled towards developing infrastructure and towards funding high quality research - both of which help in further pushing up the rankings of these universities. This when combined with the decline of other universities (due to the relative decline of their corresponding economies) greatly pushes up the universities on the global rankings table.

So for all those Asian Grads who are feeling disheartened on not making it to Harvard - relax - you may just be studying in tomorrow's Harvard...