US suffers worst global ranking performance in 16 years

The United States’ higher education system has recorded its worst performance in 16 years and is accelerating in its rate of decline, according to the 16th edition of the QS World University Rankings.

The rankings, released on 19 June, sees 72.6% of the US’s 157 ranked universities deteriorate in rank. The US has also recorded its lowest number of top-100 universities (29) since 2016, and four fewer than last year (33).

The United Kingdom also had a poor year, with its third-worst performance since the ranking began, with 66% of universities losing places, although the decline was lower than in 2017 (with 70.5% of universities falling) and 2018 (70.6%).

Ben Sowter, director of research at QS, said the US sector is experiencing an unprecedented level of decline.

“It is unambiguously clear that the global academic community has persistently diminishing confidence in the US higher education system over the past four years.

“This attrition of confidence has been compounded by worsening international student ratios, relative to global peers, and evidence that America’s previously unassailable status as the world’s research leader is under increasing threat.”

But there is good news for China, Australia and the Middle East, which gained ground:

• • More than two-thirds of Australian universities rose in the rankings.
  
  
• • China now has 19 of the world’s top 200 research universities, compared with 12 in 2016.
  
  
• • The Middle East has two top-200 universities for the first time, with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz University (186th) the new regional leader.

One strong negative trend is emerging that may reflect reduced investment in teaching and may adversely affect international student recruitment – across the 302 universities from the US, UK, Australia and Canada, 216 have recorded worse ‘Faculty-Student Ratio’ performance, QS’s measure of institutional teaching capacity.

The very top of the ranking remains unchanged with the US taking the first three places – Massachusetts Institute of Technology again leads Stanford University and Harvard University. It has five in the top 10 with California Institute of Technology slipping one place to fifth, and University of Chicago dropping one place to 10th.

EU countries closing gap on UK

The UK had four in the top 10, but the University of Cambridge dropped to its lowest position, seventh, while Oxford rose one place to fourth. University College London came eighth, up two places, leapfrogging Imperial College London at 9th, down one place.

According to QS, the data shows that the EU27 universities are closing the gap on those in the UK. In 2016 – the year of the European Union referendum in the UK – the gap between the average UK and EU27 university position was 94.7 ranks. That gap has now narrowed to 68.2 ranks: a reduction of 28%.

QS says this is in large part due to the trajectory of each cohort’s research performance. Since 2016, the average rank achieved by UK universities for ‘Citations per Faculty’ – QS’s measure of institutional research impact – has declined by 71.4 places, while the EU27 average has marginally improved (+3 ranks).

Switzerland’s ETH Zurich (6th) has overtaken the University of Cambridge for the first time, to become the continent’s second-best university.

China’s research output rivals US

Meanwhile, mainland China’s two leading universities have reached their highest-ever position in the ranking, and Chinese research output now rivals that of the United States.

Asia’s top universities are the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (both 11th).

But China’s Tsinghua University is up one place to 16th and Peking University rose eight places to joint 22nd. Both institutions have risen for five consecutive years. Fudan University is now 40th, up four places. It has now risen 31 places since 2015.

Furthermore, Chinese research impact continues to improve. Of China’s 42 ranked universities, 32 have improved their performance for QS’s ‘Citations per Paper’ indicator, while nine dropped in rank.

Eight of the world’s top-100 research universities are now Chinese – three more than last year.

China’s top 10 universities produced 428,191 research papers in the five-year period used by QS to assess research impact; the United States’ top 10 universities produced 443,996. QS highlighted that this means that the output gap is now only 15,805 papers, and is “closing year-on-year”.

Sowter concluded that one major differentiator between those higher education systems that are seeing improvements and those that are not is funding.

“China, whose research performance trajectory is diametrically opposed to that of the US, has spent two-and-a-half decades creating and implementing a comprehensive national funding strategy that has, more than ever, borne fruit this year,” he said.

“Conversely, the Trump administration’s recent request for a US$7.1 billion cut to Education Department funding is the third straight year that he has sought to reduce federal funding for the US education system.”

He said those cuts are accompanied by similarly stringent state funding. For example: the University of California system, a jewel of the US’s research ecosystem, continues to receive shares of the state’s General Fund allocations that are at historic lows.

“Coming alongside proposed attacks on the national science budget, the climate for US tertiary education seems as troubled as the global climate, whose fortunes – and the fortunes of humanity – require the US to retain its commitment to cutting-edge university research.”

By contrast Chinese universities are enjoying the “significant benefits of intelligent, discerning investment”, he said.

“It is highly possible that next year’s edition of the QS World University Rankings will see China’s 10 best universities contribute a higher volume of thought-leading research to the world than the US’s 10 best.”

However, there remains a large research impact gap. While China’s 10 best universities are producing almost as much research as their US equivalents, US research still enjoys almost twice the level of impact. “Therefore, the next frontier for Chinese higher education is taking steps to ensure that research impact matches research productivity,” Sowter said.

The rankings, produced by global higher education consultancy QS, or Quacquarelli Symonds, rank the world’s top 1,000 universities based on academic reputation, graduate employability, student-staff ratio, research performance and internationalisation.