Our esteemed flagship institution, the University of Kentucky, received funding from the state this past week to support their Top 20 Business Plan, which aims to put UK among the top 20 public research universities by 2020. While I am happy the legislature made higher education funding a priority, and I support the broader rationale for the plan (namely, the connection between quality education and the economic future of Kentucky), my personal assessment of UK's chances of fulfilling their ambitions is, well, zero.

According to US News & World Report's 2006 rankings (which I don't necessarily put much credence in, but seem to be what people use to gauge these things), Kentucky is tied for 120th on the National Universities list. That includes private universities (which occupy 20 of the top 21 spots). When reduced to just public universities, UK is tied for 59th. That's 40 other schools between them and promised land of 'Top 20' status, and how many of those schools do you want to bet have their own plan for climbing the ladder as well? And all those plans seem to forget one crucial point: for their university to enter the top 20, some other one has to fall out. Here's the 2006 top 20 public universities (overall rank in parentheses):

1. (20) University of California – Berkeley
2. (23) University of Virginia
3. (25) Univ. of California – Los Angeles
4. (25) University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
5. (27) U. of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
6. (31) College of William and Mary (VA)
7. (32) Univ. of California – San Diego
8. (34) Univ. of Wisconsin – Madison
9. (37) Georgia Institute of Technology
10. (40) University of California – Irvine
11. (42) U. of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign
12. (45) Univ. of California – Santa Barbara
13. (45) University of Washington
14. (48) Pennsylvania State U. – University Park
15. (48) University of California – Davis
16. (50) University of Florida
17. (52) University of Texas – Austin
18. (55) Univ. of Maryland – College Park
19. (58) University of Georgia
20. (58) University of Pittsburgh

With maybe a couple of exceptions, that list looks pretty unshakeable to me. Even if you could simply measure the differences between UK and those schools and come up with a plan to close that gap, the elite institutions aren't staying still for the next 15 years. Capital attracts capital, and prestige attracts prestige: UK will have to work twice as hard as everyone else to even start making real headway in that department.

Look folks, there are 50 states in the U.S. of A, and several of those have multiple major research universities. They can't all be in the Top 20. I am all for universities striving for excellence, but the obsession with rankings (which I've seen at every stop in my academic career), at best, misses the point and at worst, leads to all sorts of silly initiatives aimed not at being excellent but at appearing excellent.