After reading [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/australian/s/lcaia1IWKR) and reading the news piece that accompanied it, where professionals blamed the international student cap and the government for the decline of Australian universities in the international ranking, I decided to check the official website to check if it was true.
Basically, the performance indicators are grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment); Research environment (volume, income and reputation); Research quality (citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence); International outlook (staff, students and research); and Industry (income and patents). The detailed metodology is [here](https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/world-university-rankings-2025-methodology).
For the grading system, Teaching represents 29.5%, Research represents 29%, Research Quality represents 30%, Industry represents 4% and International Outcome represents 7.5%
Considering the weight of International Outcome is pretty low for the overall grade, I thought it was weird that the recent student caps could have had such a great impact on the universities’ positions on the rank.
It turned out that for the first three universities (I haven’t checked all), Teaching, Research Environment and Research Quality all scored LOWER than International Outlook – who is surprised?
Pic 1 – [University of Melbourne](https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/university-melbourne)
Teaching grade declined from 67.1 in 2023 to 64.2 in 2025, being the steepest decline of all the categories. All categories declined unless Industry.
Pic 2 – [Monash University](https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/monash-university)
Wouldn’t you know, their lowest score is also Teaching (and also the steepest decline – from 56.9 in 2023 to 52.2 in 2025 ), and they actually increased their points in International outlook (from 91 in 2023 to 92 in 2025)
Pic 3 – [University of Sydney
](https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/university-sydney)
Same pattern, Teaching being the lowest score, having actually increased .1 since 2023. Their International Outlook has decreased only .1 since 2023.
I’ve linked all fonts, feel free to have a read.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that news piece was actually a paid piece of propaganda to shift public opinion and put pressure on the government to lift the caps. And the scary thing is that it works. What happened to journalism?
Source: SeaworthinessNew4757
3 Comments
Gee. I wonder if its because the lecturers are hamstrung by red tape and encouraged to ensure people pass so they can keep paying, instead of providing quality education
My previous comment stands.Â
 I went to uni with a bunch of international students (let’s call that one particular country China) who paid their way through.Â
 Could also hardly speak, read or write English.
Bro, I’ll let you in on a little university secret.
Your $100k degree is managed by one person on an Excel spreadsheet. I had the unfortunate experience of having three extra modules added to my grades with a zero. My 2.1 grade went to a 1st with just a few clicks on someone’s keyboard.