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More than half of Australia’s universities have plummeted in global rankings thanks to years of inadequate funding and “the devaluation of science and education as public goods” harming the country as a whole, says the Center for World University Rankings.
The University of NSW and the University of Melbourne maintained their positions at the top of the heap, ranking No.52 and No.64 two years in a row. The Australian National University dropped from 90 to 93, the University of Sydney fell from 94 to 100 and the University of Queensland rounded out the top five at 103 for the second year running.
World rankings are a major factor for many international students’ choice about where to study, and those students are a major funding source for Australia’s tertiary institutions.
Sydney’s universities were a mixed bag – the University of Technology, Sydney moved up from 314 last year to 308 in 2026, Macquarie University sank from 341 to 344, the Australian Catholic University rocketed from 919 to 900 and the University of Western Sydney rose from 487 to 488.
In Melbourne, Monash University improved from 117 to 113, Deakin University moved up 11 places to 354, RMIT lifted from 424 to 417, La Trobe University went from 460 to 463, Swinburne University of Technology improved from 499 to 497 and Victoria University dropped from 1105 to 1163.
The rankings come as Australian universities face a reckoning, with major changes coming to domestic students’ funding, huge reliance on international students as the government seeks to curb their numbers, the changing role of AI for teaching and learning and revelations this week about a class size crisis.
Gwilym Croucher, deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne, said that the global education landscape was becoming more competitive.
“The short story is, we are pretty lucky to have the Australian unis. Much of the news from overseas is grim,” he said.
Elsewhere in the world, the United States’ Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University topped the global rankings, followed by the United Kingdom’s Cambridge University and Oxford University.
Ninety-eight per cent of China’s universities rose in the rankings, led by Tsinghua University at number 36, with the centre attributing China’s success to continued investment in higher education.
Dr Nadim Mahassen, president of the Center for World University Rankings, said successive Australian government funding failures had devalued universities and education.
“Australian universities are struggling to deliver high-quality education, attract and retain talent, and produce quality research at scale,” Mahassen said. “This is not just an academic problem but a national one because the erosion of Australia’s higher education system undermines scientific development, innovation, and the country’s long-term future.”
Education Minister Jason Clare said that universities “are not just about rankings. They should be about students”.
“We’ve got a good higher education system in Australia, but the truth is it can be a lot better and a lot fairer.”
Sydney University science student Darshan Jones, who is in his fourth year, said his course offered “lots of important things to learn”.
First-year students Angelica Ryan and Eleanor Talevi have enrolled in extra-curricular activities to bolster what they learn in the classroom. Ryan, who is studying pharmacy, said: “I feel like we’ve both been pretty involved in the societies, [including] the science society.”
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