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Since 2004, the world's top 200 universities have been ranked annually by the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings.

Recently, the U.S. has been losing representation on the list while Asia has been gaining.

In 2008, the U.S. had 37 universities in the top 100 and 58 in the top 200. In 2009, that dropped to 32 and 54, respectively.

Between 2008 and 2009, Japan went from 10 universities in the top 200 to 11, Hong Kong went from four to five, South Korea went from three to four, and China's mainland maintained its position with six.

Having visited nearly half of these Asian universities and having seen their large number of research facilities, I am not surprised when I read about Asian nations making enormous investments in their universities.

I am surprised, however, when I read about funding reductions for U.S. universities. For example, the University of California - long regarded as the nation's leading public university - recently suffered an 813 million U.S. dollars reduction in state financing.

Disinvestment is also happening to universities in Michigan, Washington, Arizona and many other states.

Budgets are being cut from state-supported universities primarily because states are facing budget shortfalls of historic proportions. However, short-sighted state politics like this will lead to long-term consequences.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet