Abstract

The internationalization of higher education has become the perfect setting for the rankings of universities to acquire greater relevance at the global level, since the information they provide constitutes a focus of interest for a large number of actors in the educational field. Despite the well-known criticisms, which are related to oversimplification and bias towards research universities, they have been able to adapt their methods to focus the evaluation on certain regions or countries. From this context, this research seeks to analyze the historical evolution of Chilean universities in the three national rankings under study (ranking of the magazine Qué Pasa – La Tercera; ranking of the magazine América Economía; and Ranking of the group of advanced studies (GEA) Universitas – El Mercurio). For this, a bibliographic and documentary analysis of secondary sources of information was carried out. The study revealed two major conclusions: (1) there is a series of institutions that are always located in a certain range of positions, regardless of the ranking, the methodology used or the year in question; (2) predominance of non-state universities belonging to the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), in the groups composed of the institutions with the best placement in the lists.