On the surface, things look reasonably good for Australia’s higher education system. According to the QS World University Rankings, we are the fifth-best in the world. But look a little deeper, and you will find our universities teetering on the brink of long-term academic decline.
Despite having nine universities in the global top 100, and two in the top 20, Australia is facing a steady downward trend in performance that may soon prove difficult to reverse.
Over the past five years, the QS index has tracked the declining reputation of Australian institutions.
In the latest rankings, 25 of the 36 Australian universities slipped in position – amounting to a 70 per cent drop rate. Only Austria and Russia experienced a greater percentage decline.
While the University of Melbourne ranked highest among Australian universities, it fell from 13th to 19th globally. The University of New South Wales dropped from 19th to 20th, and the University of Sydney declined from 18th to 25th. These movements signal deeper structural problems within the sector.
The QS World University Rankings, compiled by the analytics firm Quacquarelli Symonds, assess universities across five broad metrics: research, employability, learning, global engagement, and sustainability.
For Australia, underperformance in academic and employer reputation was particularly stark – 20 institutions scored poorly for academic reputation, while 30 were marked lower for employer reputation. By contrast, Australia performed strongly in sustainability, global engagement, and citations per faculty. This speaks to the internationalisation of Australia’s student population and faculty members.
The danger it seems is that Australian universities are winning in the wrong areas and losing in the right ones. Take sustainability; such initiatives can divert limited university funds away from core priorities such as teaching and research. Similarly, the internationalisation of our universities, although valuable for revenue, has led to significant domestic strain.
Between 2000 and 2022 the proportion of international students more than doubled, from 14 per cent to 29 per cent. This influx has not only burdened the housing market and infrastructure, as shown by research from the Institute of Public Affairs, but it may also be eroding academic standards.
There appears to be a trade-off between internationalisation and academic performance, which is reflected in Australia’s QS rankings. Higher numbers of overseas students have coincided with a dramatic decline in academic and employer categories.
A 2019 Four Corners investigation revealed some universities were waiving English language requirements, while students relied on translation apps to follow lectures. Incidents of plagiarism have also increased. These issues remain unresolved.
Nonetheless, the promise of revenue from full fee-paying international student and a higher QS ranking, has pushed universities to expand international enrolments. Research programs are now heavily reliant on this income, reinforcing the trend. In pursuing the opportunities, Australian universities have drifted from their historic mission: to elevate the intellectual and cultural life of the nation.
Sir Robert Menzies captured this mission when he declared:
‘We must become a more and more educated democracy if we are to raise our spiritual, intellectual and material living standards.’
Universities were once seen as guardians of democracy – they were institutions where students learned to think critically, debate robustly, and engage thoughtfully with the world around them.
Today, however, many Australian universities operate more like bureaucratic enterprises, focused on revenue, rankings, and graduate output. The QS system has simultaneously rewarded this quantity-over-quality approach while punishing Australia for declines in academic reputation.
Australia’s academic and political leaders should critically reassess the metrics we choose to pursue. Many QS indicators, particularly global engagement and sustainability, are at odds with the historic purpose of higher education. We should instead be doubling down on research, employability, and learning – metrics that genuinely serve the national interest.
A robust, future-focused university system should be built not for rankings, but for the democratic, intellectual, and cultural advancement of Australia. It is time to re-centre our universities around their true mission: the pursuit of knowledge, the cultivation of minds, and serving the public good.
Brianna McKee is a Research Fellow and the National Manager of Generation Liberty at the Institute of Public Affairs.
