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campusreview.com.au
Six of the best
Australian universities place in top 100
of world reputation rankings.
S
ix Australian universities have secured a top 100 ranking in
the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings for
2019 – doubling its representation since last year.
The University of Melbourne was Australia’s highest ranked
institution this year, coming in equal 44th with the Georgia Institute
of Technology in the US and the University of Hong Kong. The
university has improved its reputation ranking since last year, rising
three places.
The University of Sydney also ranked well this year, securing a
spot in the 61–70 band with other well-known universities such as
Bleak city shines
Australia’s student cities rank
highly but fail on affordability.
M
elbourne is still Australia’s best
student city, according to
Quacquarelli Symonds. It put the
Victorian capital behind only London and
Tokyo on the latest instalment of its list of
best student cities.
Amid public discourse about the liveliness
and international appeal of Sydney, the city
retained its number 9 spot this year.
Michigan State University and the University of Southern California.
The Australian National University achieved a 71–80 ranking, while
Monash University, the University of Queensland and the University
of New South Wales all ranked in the 91–100 band.
US universities continued to dominate the reputation rankings,
with 42 institutions in the top 100.
Harvard University took out the top spot for a second year in a
row, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
Stanford University.
The University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford ranked
fourth and fifth respectively this year.
The Reputation Rankings is based on an invitation-only survey
of more than 10,000 leading academics from 135 countries. The
questionnaire asks each respondent to list the top 15 universities for
teaching and the top 15 for research.
The acting vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne,
Professor Mark Considine, said: “We are pleased to be ranked
number one in Australia and 44th in the world in the Times Higher
Education Reputation Rankings 2019, which is a reflection of the
university’s strong commitment to education and research.”
The deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney, Professor
Duncan Ivison, was also thrilled at his institution's result.
“This outcome is a great tribute to our academic and professional
staff, who are doing so much to lift the performance of the
university in education and research,” he said.
“In the past few years, we’ve undertaken some of the biggest
reforms in a century to both our curriculum and our research
approach, and it’s starting to pay off.” ■
Overall, six Australian cities rank in
the top 50, including Brisbane at 22,
Canberra one spot behind that and Perth
at 41. The other top 50 Australian city
was Adelaide, which climbed 15 places to
reach number 26. After Perth, the next best
performer was the Gold Coast, coming in
at 84, up three places from last year.
The list ranks cities according to number
and performance of universities, student
mix, employer activity, affordability and
desirability.
It also takes into account student
voice, which is hinged on feedback from
over 87,000 current and prospective
international students. It’s here, and on
affordability, that Australian universities
are faltering.
Director of research at QS Ben Sowter
said the drop in student view partly
implies that the life students experience at
Australian universities and their willingness
to remain there post-graduation fails to
match the experience they anticipated.
“Uniformly increasing class sizes at
Australian institutions, as recorded by our
most recent QS World University Rankings,
may well be affecting student satisfaction
with the teaching experience,” Sowter added.
Still, Melbourne was ranked third on
the student voice metric – one of five
top 10 finishes for the city across the six
indicator groups.
Yet it didn’t manage to buck the
affordability trend. Against that metric,
it doesn’t even break the top 100, coming
in at 105.
QS said this is typical of Australian cities.
The most affordable is the Gold Coast,
which placed 89th globally.
The bad news isn’t without retort –
QS showed Australian cities are improving
their performance for desirability
and student mix. Sydney outranks
Melbourne for the former, only beaten
by Tokyo.
Sydney is also second in the world
for student mix, behind Melbourne, and
reached the top 10 (9th) for employer
activity.
Sowter said one of the primary incentives
for any prospective international student to
study in Australia is the high quality of life
on offer.
“Six of the world’s 30 highest-performing
cities for our desirability indicator
are Australian – a record bettered by no
other nation.” ■
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