The school year is in full swing! Whether you’re looking for some reassurance that your HECS debt is paying off or are considering swapping degrees, it’s worth having a squiz at Times Higher Education’s esteemed 2025 World University Rankings. This year, six Aussie institutions made the cut, rubbing shoulders with big guns like the University of Oxford, Stanford, Princeton and Harvard.
To compile this list, Times evaluated more than 2,000 tertiary institutions, considering factors like teaching, research quality, industry engagement and international outlook. The University of Melbourne placed 39th on the list, making it the highest ranked in Australia. It received an overall score of 78.4 and an impressive 99.3 score for industry engagement. The university also performed well in the rankings by subject, landing in an impressive 11th place for law and 20th for medical and health. Not too shabby when you look at the highly regarded institutions featured on the list.
The University of Melbourne outperformed its fellow Aussie institutions by quite a large stretch, with Monash University ranking as the nation’s second-best and coming 58th globally. The University of Sydney placed 61st, the Australian National University came 73rd, the University of Queensland landed at 77th and UNSW Sydney rounded out Australia’s top 100 inclusions at 83rd.
Overall, Australia had ten universities in the top 200, which is the sixth most of any country in the world, behind the US (55), UK (25), Germany (20), China (13) and the Netherlands (11). However, Australia’s top five universities all saw a slight drop in rankings, slipping between one and seven spots compared to last year. Guess it’s time to hit the books!
These are the top 10 universities in the world for 2025
- University of Oxford
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Harvard University
- Princeton University
- University of Cambridge
- Stanford University
- California Institute of Technology
- University of California, Berkeley
- Imperial College London
- Yale University
Here’s how Aussie universities placed in the top 100
39. University of Melbourne
58. Monash University
61. The University of Sydney
73. Australian National University
77. The University of Queensland
83. UNSW Sydney
You can check out the full list over here.