I'd hate to come from a postmodern perspective. There are always going to certain aspects used more readily by people to determine rankings. For example, prestige is one factor.
I'm not here to say that these are necessarily the right aspects. I am neutral in that regard. I simply want to suggestion that these rankings are created by the interaction of social forces and human behaviour, which together render some things more centralised with Foucault's distribution of power more so than others.
In other words, some factors are just inevitably more highly regarded than others in a general sense because of the social context in which we live in. That's not to say these factors are always more accurate. It's just that everything is, in a sense, revolving around relativism.
I agree with all the factors you've listed, and I guess it's a very subjective issue. However, there are certain things that people IN GENERAL (and of course, there are lots of people who don't agree or just vary the agreement) always employ to evaluate a university.
And unfortunately, no matter how much you try to dismiss these rankings, there are going to be heaps of people out there who will select a university on the basis of these rankings and hence the aspects these rankings used to evaluate. And I stick with the reason that it's not because these rankings are RIGHT or ABSOLUTE, but because the hegemony of various social forces point towards this direction of dominant thinking.
