Both of Canberra's universities have fallen in one of the world's most highly regarded rankings, to be released on Thursday.
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After climbing to the 20th spot on the QS World University ladder last year, the Australian National University was bumped back down to 24th place for the coming year, though it did hold onto its spot at the top of the pack for Australian universities.
The University of Canberra also took a dive, sliding back a band to 601-650, and coming in at number 28 among Australian universities.
A spokeswoman for QS said both ANU and UC lost ground on their academic reputation and student to staff ratios, but rose in the rankings for research impact. The University of Canberra jumped 55 places on a measure of the number of citations per faculty and the ANU was the 44th globally on that same list.
The university's ranks also swelled by 2235 extra students this year, including more than 1450 from overseas. But only 38 more faculty staff arrived on campus in the same time, the report found, bringing their total faculty staffing up to 1638 for 2018.
As a result, the "faculty/student ratio has suffered and they lost 69 places", the QS spokeswoman said.
The ANU welcomed the ranking, which showed it still held its place "amongst the great universities of the world".
"University rankings tend to fluctuate year on year, but ANU consistently ranks highly on all university measures – research, teaching and student experience," a spokeswoman said.
Nationally, while almost three-quarters of universities were lifting their research game, they were also failing to keep up with the rest of the world in terms of academic reputation and faculty-student ratios, the ranking found.
QS research director Ben Sowter said Australian standards were not dropping; rather, everyone else was improving.
The University of Melbourne moved up 3 places to 39, after being crowned as the top Australian institution on the Centre for World University Rankings released last week.
The University of Sydney was next on the QS list for Australia, ranking 42nd in the world.
On another scoreboard released Thursday, UC climbed 33 places to number 58 in the Times Higher Education Young University Rankings, which lists the top institutions under 50 years of age.
Vice-chancellor Professor Deep Saini described it as a "major jump" for the university.
But, despite the university's increasing "international outlook", the QS spokeswoman said its overseas intake fell by 253 students this year.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was named the world's best university for a record-breaking seventh year on the QS list, but Australia again had five of its 37 universities in the top 50, and more institutions rose up the rankings than fell down.
Handing down the ACT budget on Tuesday, Chief Minister Andrew Barr said education continued to be one of the strongest drivers of growth for the territory's economy, as more international students flocked to Canberra universities.
You can view the full QS rankings at topuniversities.com
- with Jordan Baker
