College rankings: Which countries have the best education systems?

A new higher education ranking focuses on evaluating quality by countries as a whole, rather than specific academic institutions. Here are some of the findings:

No. 3 Canada

Home to prestigious institutions like McGill University and the University of Toronto, Canada’s higher education system ranked third overall. Canada did rank first in terms of resources, with total higher education funding as a percentage of gross domestic product coming in quite high, and providing generous funding for research and development, and per student.
In terms of environment, however, which takes into consideration the proportion of both female students and staff in higher education as well as the diversity of institutions and regulatory environment, Canada falls in the bottom half of the listed countries, behind Bulgaria, Portugal, Malaysia, and Mexico, to name a few.
Canada falls in the top half of the countries ranked in terms of connectivity – an indicator of teaching and research quality – and was ranked third in terms of output, behind the United States and the United Kingdom.

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