Australian universities resilient in QS world ranking

The University of Melbourne is Australia’s leading university in the QS World University Rankings 2025, rising from 14th to 13th. It is joined in the global top 20 by the University of Sydney (18th, up from 19th) and the University of New South Wales (19th, no change).

Unlike its peer systems in the United States and United Kingdom, Australian higher education has remained resilient this year in the face of accelerating improvements from Asian institutions, consolidating the progress that it made in last year’s ranking.

While two-thirds of featured US institutions have declined in rank year-on-year, and only 22% of British universities have improved their rank, almost half of Australia’s entrants (47%) are upwardly mobile in the 2025 edition.

According to QS, this resilience is driven by:

• Outstanding Sustainability performance, with the University of Sydney (7th) and University of Melbourne (9th) ranking among the global top 10 for this metric.

• The increasing regard in which Australian universities are held by the global academic community. Some 58% of Australia’s universities have improved their score in the Academic Reputation metric over the last year, which captures the sentiment of over 175,000 academic faculty members globally.

• World-leading levels of internationalisation, with three Australian universities (The University of Sydney, The University of Queensland, and Monash University) achieving perfect scores for QS’ International Students indicator.

• Enduringly strong research impact: the University of Western Australia (30th), University of Technology Sydney (39th) and University of New South Wales (49th) are among the world’s top 50 research institutions, adjusted for faculty size.

Rising international competition

Although Australia’s results remain strong, there are indications among individual metrics that the country’s universities are also subject to increasing international competition in key mission areas, particularly employability and teaching capacity.

These indications include:

• 82% of Australian universities have recorded lower year-on-year scores in QS’ Employment Outcomes indicator.

• 76% of Australian universities have received lower year-on-year relative scores from over 105,000 employers worldwide, captured in the Employer Reputation metric.

• No Australian university ranks among the top 300 for QS’ measure of teaching capacity, Faculty-Student Ratio. The national leader, Bond University, is only 326th in the world, with a score of 47.8/100. The only other Australian university to rank among the global top-500 for this metric is Australian National University, whose score of 34.6/100 places it 457th.

Indeed, Australia offers the lowest levels of teaching capacity among the ‘Big Four’ nations: its universities average a score of 12.5/100 for QS’ Faculty/Student Ratio indicator, which measures teaching resources. This is significantly below the global average of 28.1.

High levels of research collaboration

Among the positives, Australian excellence is driven by particularly high levels of global research collaboration, according to QS. Its universities’ average score of 73.6/100 for QS’ International Research Network metric is higher than that achieved by the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.

Relative to its Anglophone peers, Australian universities are the most international in terms of academic staff, achieving an average score of 80.5/100 for QS’ International Faculty Ratio indicator.

On Academic Reputation, the metric that carries the highest weighting of 30%, 58% of entries are rising. The average score of 31.5 aligns with last year’s performance and is eleven points above the global average.

But regarding Employer Reputation, weighted at 15%, some 76% of entries have declined and only 21% are improving, suggesting a decline in how graduates are perceived in the job market. The average score of 27.0 aligns with last year’s and is seven points higher than the global average.

Citations per Faculty indicator, used to evaluate research impact, sees 8% of entries rising and 42% declining, reflecting variable research performance. However, the average score of 60.8 is one point higher than last year and more than double the global average of 23.5.

Regarding International Research Network: While 58% of entries have declined, the average score has increased year-on-year. At 73.7, it is 23 points higher than the global average of 50.1.

The Sustainability indicator sees 52% of entries improving, and the national average score is 11 points higher than the global one, suggesting that Australian universities are increasingly focusing on sustainable practices.

The International Faculty Ratio and International Student Ratio have seen declines in 71% and 68% of entries, respectively. This trend is likely to worsen as Australia implements changes aimed at reducing the influx of international talent and students.

In February, the number of international students in Australia hit a record high, surpassing 700,000, significantly more than the pre-pandemic figure of 580,000.

Plan to cap international enrolments

But the federal government has recently announced a new plan to cap enrolments of international students and link additional places to institutions investing in new student-specific accommodation blocks.

The proposed cap structure comes at a time when the international student visa fee may rise from AUS$704 (USD463,37) to AUS$1500.

Jessica Turner, CEO of QS, said: ”Australia has announced tighter regulations for international student visas to respond to domestic concerns about rising migration. These include stricter English language proficiency and financial proof requirements, a new ‘genuine student’ test, and a higher visa fee.

“These measures may prompt several thousands of prospective students to look beyond Australia, impacting a $48 billion export sector that relies heavily on student fees to fund research and maintain its cutting-edge status.”

She said it is important to balance regulatory measures with the need to support the international education sector and the opportunities it provides.

“We hope that a thoughtful approach will be taken to avoid unintended negative impacts on students, universities, and Australia’s global competitiveness,” she said.

Angel Calderon, Director of Strategic Insights at RMIT University and member of the QS Global Rankings Advisory Board, said: “For over a decade, Australian universities continue to exhibit relative weakness in the employer reputation survey. In the eyes of employers, it is a clear reflection of the improved educational qualityof Asian universities.”

He said the proposed introduction of a cap to the number of international students will be detrimental to the viability of Australian universities, erode Australia’s educational quality and knowledge production capacity and “runs contrary to addressing skills shortages”.