Dive Brief:
- Fast Company has revealed a list of the top universities worldwide in the production of coders, with results produced by teams of more than 5,000 coders competing in a competition for individual and scoring rankings.
- The Russian Federation College finished with the world's top score, followed by institutions from China and Vietnam. The University of California - Berkeley placed fourth as the top team from the U.S., and one of just three teams in the top 25 — and 8 in the world's top 50 — institutions.
- India placed 22 universities in the top 25, and students from China indicated that coding instruction can begin as early as elementary school, a precursor for high performance in college.
Dive Insight:
While the United States may boast the strongest number of the world's students traveling abroad for higher education, it is clear that in at least one industry many nations and institutions are outpacing some of the biggest and most well-known schools in the nation. The question is if that is a function of the education U.S. students are receiving in college, or a lack of exposure to coding training in primary and secondary schools?
This is the kind of data that college leaders should use to present to lawmakers and federal officials to spur the kind of funding emphasis for higher education and K-12 that can make the nation more competitive with other developing and established countries. It is not just a matter of who is the best at writing code, but which nation becomes more prone to hacking of critical tech infrastructure and other critical networks which help power transportation, military, education and security in the U.S.