‘Serious warning signs’: Sydney universities slide in global rankings

Some of the state’s best universities have slipped in international league tables, with 17 institutions across the country recording a worse performance than they did a year ago.

Analysts say pandemic lockdowns and significant drops in teaching and research reputation were part of the reason behind the poor performance of several elite Australian institutions in the 2025 Times Higher Education magazine rankings.

The University of Sydney recorded its worst result since 2018, falling one place to 61st in the world. The University of Technology Sydney dropped six spots to equal 154th, while the Australian National University also fell six places to equal 73rd.

The nation’s universities recorded significant declines in both teaching and research reputations across the board.

In a bleak outlook for Australia’s tertiary education sector, seven of the 17 downgraded institutions received their worst rankings since 2016. Several Australian universities dropped in the rankings last year due to factors including poor student-to-staff ratios, which are among the worst globally.

Only four Australian universities improved their rankings in this year’s index: UNSW moved from 84th to 83rd and Macquarie University went from 180th to 178th, respectively. Deakin University in Melbourne and Victoria’s Federation University Australia also improved.

Researchers found the global academic reputations and funding levels of Australian universities were sliding, and the respected British magazine warned of worse to come, with the federal government’s controversial cuts to international student numbers expected to put further pressure on local universities.

The loss of international student revenue amid pandemic border closures, along with some of the world’s longest lockdowns, were cited by the researchers as factors contributing to the disappointing results, with “inflation and flat domestic demand leaving them more vulnerable than before COVID”.

The index authors agreed with the public position of the Group of Eight, the country’s most prestigious universities, which have stated that members – particularly the large institutions in Sydney and Melbourne – were likely to be hit hardest by the federal Labor government’s limits to international student numbers.

Times Higher Education spokesman Phil Baty said Australia continued to offer some of the world’s very best universities but this year’s index sent “serious warning signs”.

The University of Sydney fell one place in the rankings this year.Credit: Louise Kennerley

“Australian universities are losing ground in … their global academic reputation, funding levels, and, perhaps most alarmingly, in areas of great traditional strength: international research collaboration and the attraction of international talent,” Baty said.

“Many in the sector are very worried about forthcoming new international student caps, which may further erode income for some top institutions, as well as diminish Australia’s world-leading reputation as an open and internationally facing sector.”

The rankings, closely watched in the sector and used by universities for marketing, are based on performance indicators measuring an institution’s performance across five areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry, and international outlook.

But many experts are sceptical of the utility of the index in giving a clear picture of the state of the sector. Australian National University professor Andrew Norton said the rankings were based on a “composite of factors” that did not necessarily reflect an institution’s priorities.

“These are not necessarily the factors that the institutions prioritise, and are not necessarily the factors that students, when selecting the university, would prioritise,” Norton said.

Oxford is ranked as the best university in the world, while Australia’s top-ranked University of Melbourne was downgraded by two places to 39th.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare warned about putting too much emphasis on rankings.

“Universities are not just about rankings. They should be about students,” he said.

A University of Sydney spokeswoman noted that its teaching score had improved by eight places, attributing the change to an adjustment made following an earlier overestimation of the number of active researchers in Australia.

“There was a slight slippage in global rank across the [Group of Eight] believed to be related to that methodology change,” she said.

At the University of Technology, a spokeswoman described its change as a “small decline”.

“Both domestic and international factors contribute to changes in rankings, and it is not yet clear from the 2025 data whether the changes reflect long-term trends or the impact of recent circumstances,” she said.

An Australian National University spokesperson said they were not primarily motivated by rankings.

“By any measure, ANU is a world-class university, and is consistently counted among the very best universities globally by a range of rankings,” the spokesperson said.

“But rankings are not what drives our mission. We exist to serve the nation and all Australians, as well as our region and the wider world, through truly transformational research and teaching.”

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