Sponsorship distorts the nature of college ranking lists and must be curbed by regulators, says an article in Workers' Daily. Following is an exerpt:

Gong Ke, the president of Tianjin University, recently admitted that a college ranking provider once visited Tianjin University seeking sponsorship and was promptly rejected. This is the first time the president of a university has testified to the existence of sponsorship collected by college ranking providers.

If a ranking institute can't ensure its neutrality and objectivity, its lists will not be legitimate and reliable.

But a latent rule among college ranking providers is that they can gain profits by asking colleges for sponsorship.

Obviously, renowned universities like Peking and Tsinghua need not agree to such requests - for no ranking list could influence their established academic status.

But for the second- and third-rate colleges, a slot high on the ranking list may mean a lot, and help them win local government support.

It's a good deal for many of them.

Although sponsorship undermines ranking lists, they still have a wide impact on college candidates and their parents.

So, we should take measures to eradicate this corrupt way of ranking colleges.

(China Daily March 30, 2009)