“The importance of the latest QS university employability rankings is that they show that the students of the American University of Beirut are among the most highly sought by employers globally,” AUB President Fadlo Khuri told The Daily Star. “We are not the least bit surprised that employers consider our students to be the most talented and employable from South Africa to Russia, from India to Greece and Turkey. They are genuinely formidable and ethical young people.” Khuri said that in addition to the “invaluable and reproducible set of skills” gained through an AUB education, graduates also leave the university with a “rich vein of values.” “These are the values that can build not only great companies but enduring and inclusive societies,” he said.
For Rami Khouri, senior public policy fellow and adjunct professor of journalism at AUB, the university’s high ranking is due to three factors that reflect both its location and American liberal higher education tradition: “A core focus on research and producing new knowledge, rather than just reading other people’s texts; a deep commitment to open public discussion and dialogue on all topics, in and out of class; and an emphasis on training students to use their minds, think on their feet and be creative and dynamic in order to address challenges in their lives.”
The QS Graduate Employability Ranking attempts to make a global comparison of the employability outcomes achieved by higher education institutions. This year’s iteration has been published with some refinements and a wider scope than last year’s. Through a very thorough methodology, it tries to answer questions such as how reputable the institutions are among employers, how well-connected they are with companies, whether the institutions nurture high achievers, and how attractive recent graduates are to employers.
Every indicator is given a weight: 30 percent accounts for employer reputation; 25 percent for the alumni outcomes; 25 percent for partnerships with employers per faculty; 10 percent for employer-student connections; and the final 10 percent for the graduate employment rate, which is the best-performing indicator of AUB, scoring 99.8/100. AUB moved up the ladder, placing in the 81-90 bracket in the overall 2017 ranking.
“As jobs become more scarce in the Middle East and applicants increase, the quality and employability of AUB graduates becomes more evident, and their ranking increases compared to others,” Khouri said.
