Just 13 American schools made the top 50 in CoinDesk's rankings — a stark contrast to what we've seen in previous years.
CoinDesk’s ranking of the Top Universities for Blockchain in 2021 is out — and it’s a vastly different landscape than last year.
Most notably, the rankings expanded from 46 U.S. universities in 2020 to 230 spread across the world.
What it showed, first and foremost, is that Asia is out in front when it comes to blockchain education, followed by Europe and then the U.S.
The National University of Singapore came out on top, with CoinDesk citing “its multiple blockchain research centers, its frequently hosted blockchain-themed conferences, its many blockchain clubs, its company partnerships and its masters program in digital financial technology.”
It was followed by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, University of California Berkeley, University of Zurich, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
So... the U.S. has some of the top blockchain schools in the world. But after that, it went downhill for U.S. schools, with just five in the top 25: Stanford University (No. 12), Cornell University (No. 17), and University of California Los Angeles (No. 25).
Just 13 American schools made the top 50, and Harvard fared the worst, dropping from No. 5 in 2020 to 49th place this year.
Listen to the CoinMarketRecap podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts
A Holistic Approach
“We really tried to take a holistic look at these universities,” said Reuben Youngblom, a researcher from Stanford and MIT, who led the project along with CoinDesk’s Joe Lautzenhiser. “We factored in undergrad programs, grad programs, and even some of the aspects of schools that aren't necessarily tied to the student side, such as the research that the faculty is doing.”
“The research focused heavily on quantitative data,” Youngblom told CoinDesk TV. That meant looking at the courses available, but also how many there were, and which departments and how many departments they were in — that is, how widely spread they were. One aspect he wants to add in 2022 is gender breakdown, which is a big deal in an industry where women are so far very underrepresented.
“We also did gather a bunch of qualitative data,” Youngblom said. “We did a lot of survey data and really looked at what people thought about these universities and the courses — that factored in fairly heavily in our methodology as well.”
The regulatory environment — which is generally considered to be fairly poor and undefined in the U.S. — was another big factor, he said.
Youngblom added that a lot of American schools fell not because they got worse, but because there was so much more competition.
