Those rankings give a 60% weighting towards research rather than teaching. It is unsurprising that the country with the only trillion-dollar GDP has the highest number of top universities, since research runs on money.
Half of that 60% is citations in research. Hardly surprising again that the Anglo universities get a guernsey there, given that English is the lingua franca these days, particularly in science. If a university only publishes in English, then it's going to get a wider citational audience as compared to splitting its output between French and English.
Ultimately, in the context of the discussion here, the concern is the quality of teaching, not the quality of research. While there is an interaction between the two, they are not synonymous.
Right, and individual universities that are supported by those countries.
What you should be argueing is that researchers are more densely distributed in top universities in the US, because in Europe researchers are less likely to jump to another country. Especially when they prefer to publish in their own language.
This may or may not be true.
Truth is, I at least and I think we in general are rather envious of the awesome top universities the US has.
But I think the US should be envious that we in Europe have our quality spread over the universities, and no matter what your parents' income or background is, or how much effort you put into highschool, you will always be able to attend a quality university.
I think that's worth not having the world's top universities.
Half of that 60% is citations in research. Hardly surprising again that the Anglo universities get a guernsey there, given that English is the lingua franca these days, particularly in science. If a university only publishes in English, then it's going to get a wider citational audience as compared to splitting its output between French and English.
Ultimately, in the context of the discussion here, the concern is the quality of teaching, not the quality of research. While there is an interaction between the two, they are not synonymous.