“If you were to take a look at a list of private universities and colleges in the United States – for example, here – you would immediately see many of the best and most prominent universities in the world. On the other hand in these islands there are almost no private universities, the only notable exception being the University of Buckingham in England. But if you were to look for Buckingham in the very latest British university league table, you would not find it; it is too small (it has only around 800 students), and its ranking could not therefore easily be calculated. While it has some admirers, on the whole it is seen as being a peripheral institution in British higher education. In Ireland on the other hand there is a hugely successful private university-level institution, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), though this is a specialist private medical school with a small science Faculty, and therefore strictly speaking not a university …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 2 May]