Same Universities, Two Rankings: Why THE and QS Paint Different Pictures of Australian Higher Education in 2024

Global university rankings are aggregate scores derived from weighted indicators, yet two prominent systems—Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE) and QS World University Rankings—produce notably different ordinal positions for identical institutions. In 2024, the Australian National University (ANU) placed 34th in the QS ranking and 67th in THE, a 33-rank discrepancy that underscores the methodological contrasts underpinning each table. According to the Department of Education, Australia hosted 567,946 international students as of January 2024, many of whom consult multiple ranking platforms during decision-making. Understanding why the same university occupies two distinct rungs is not a question of error but of what each ranking chooses to measure.

The Divergence in Numbers

Across Australian universities, the variance between THE and QS in 2024 is systematic. A side-by-side comparison of the top eight institutions as ranked by each system reveals the scale of repositioning.

Institution	QS 2024 Rank	THE 2024 Rank	Delta (QS – THE)
University of Melbourne	14	37	-23
University of Sydney	19	60	-41
UNSW Sydney	19	84	-65
Australian National University	34	67	-33
Monash University	42	54	-12
University of Queensland	43	70	-27
University of Western Australia	72	143	-71
University of Adelaide	89	111	-22

Sources: QS World University Rankings 2024; Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024.

The delta column reveals a consistent pattern: Australian institutions place higher in QS than in THE. UNSW Sydney drops 65 positions between the two lists, while the University of Western Australia falls 71. Even when both systems rank a university strongly—as with Melbourne—the QS score tends to be more favourable. This structural bias is not accidental; it flows directly from indicator selection and weighting.

Methodology Side by Side

QS World University Rankings 2024

QS assigns scores across nine indicators, where reputation surveys dominate:

Academic Reputation: 40%
Employer Reputation: 10%
Faculty/Student Ratio: 20%
Citations per Faculty: 20%
International Faculty Ratio: 5%
International Student Ratio: 5%
International Research Network: introduced in 2023, weight embedded in overall framework
Employment Outcomes: new for 2024, weight not fully disclosed but integrated

The 40% academic reputation indicator draws from a survey of over 151,000 academics globally. Employer reputation derives from approximately 99,000 employer responses as of 2024 (QS data). Together, survey-based components account for more than half of the final score.

THE World University Rankings 2024

THE breaks performance into five pillars comprising 13 indicators:

📖 - Wisdom of Crowds: What Happens When You Average QS, THE, and ARWU Rankings for Australian Universities?

Teaching (30%): reputation survey (15%), staff-to-student ratio (4.5%), doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio (2.25%), doctorates-awarded-to-academic-staff ratio (6%), institutional income (2.25%)
Research (30%): reputation survey (18%), research income (6%), research productivity (6%)
Citations (30%): field-weighted citation impact
International Outlook (7.5%): proportion of international students (2.5%), international staff (2.5%), international co-authorship (2.5%)
Industry Income (2.5%): research income from industry per academic staff

The 33% combined reputation survey weight (teaching reputation 15% + research reputation 18%) is notably lower than QS’s 50%. Bibliometric citations carry a 30% load, compared to QS’s 20% for citations per faculty. THE’s industry income indicator captures commercial research partnerships but lacks a dedicated employer survey, an omission with outsized implications for graduate employability signals.

Weight of Citations Versus Reputation Surveys

In QS, the academic reputation survey accounts for 40% of the total score. For universities based in non-anglophone countries or with younger age profiles, this can depress rankings because global name recognition builds slowly. Australian universities, many with long histories, benefit from strong brand awareness across Asia-Pacific and Commonwealth networks. The survey asks respondents to nominate institutions they consider excellent for research in their field. A 2023 Universities Australia analysis noted that Australian universities produce 3.4% of the world’s research output with only 0.3% of the global population, a visibility ratio that boosts QS reputation marks.

THE’s 30% citation weight relies on Elsevier’s Scopus database to compute field-weighted citation impact, a measure of how often a university’s published work is cited relative to the global average in that discipline. Citation metrics favour institutions with a high concentration of research in life sciences and medicine, where publication velocity and citation counts are elevated. Australian universities produce strong outputs in health sciences; however, the Scopus database has broader coverage of North American and European journals, which can dilute the citation visibility of regionally focused Australian research in environmental science or Indigenous studies. The Department of Education’s 2022 Excellence in Research Australia assessment highlighted that 81% of Australian research was classified as “above world standard,” yet that quality does not translate evenly into citation counts across metrics.

The survey-versus-citation split helps explain why universities such as the University of Melbourne, with a deep and historic reputation, achieve a QS rank 23 places above their THE rank. Melbourne’s academic reputation score in QS 2024 was 99.3/100, whereas its research reputation in THE, while strong, competes with a heavier citation load that moderates its overall position.

The International Student Ratio Effect

Both ranking systems integrate internationalisation metrics, but their architecture differs. QS allocates a combined 10% to international faculty ratio (5%) and international student ratio (5%). These are simple headcount ratios: the proportion of students or staff with an international passport compared to the total. Australian universities, where international enrolment averaged 26.5% across the sector in 2022 according to Universities Australia data, consistently score high on these indicators. The Department of Home Affairs reported 428,795 student visa holders in the higher education sector alone as of October 2023, underscoring the sustained international intake.

THE’s International Outlook pillar (7.5%) includes international-to-domestic student ratio (2.5%), international staff ratio (2.5%), and international co-authorship share (2.5%). The co-authorship component—the proportion of a university’s journal publications with at least one international co-author—adds a bibliometric filter that QS’s pure demographic ratio does not. A university with many international students but lower international co-authorship may be penalised in THE relative to QS. Conversely, a university strong in global research collaboration but with modest international enrolment (uncommon in Australia) could see a reversed effect.

This structural difference is material. The University of Western Australia, with an international student share of approximately 27% in 2023, ranks 72nd in QS but 143rd in THE. While other indicators contribute, the shift from a headcount-driven international score to one partly measured by co-authorship redistributes points. Universities in the Group of Eight (Go8), which account for 73% of all Australian university research income as per TEQSA’s 2022 statistics, tend to exhibit high international co-authorship, yet the numeric scaling of that indicator within THE is less generous for Australian institutions than the QS ratio.

Employer Survey Reach and Industry Signal

QS’s employer reputation survey is a large-scale global canvass. In the 2024 edition, it captured responses from roughly 99,000 employers across more than 90 countries, asking participants to identify universities producing the most competent, innovative, and effective graduates. The raw mass of that feedback translates into an employer reputation score that, along with the new Employment Outcomes indicator, means QS carries two separate signals used by recruitment professionals. For Australian universities with extensive international alumni networks, particularly in Asia, this amplifies their ranking. Four Australian institutions placed in the top 50 globally for employer reputation: the University of Melbourne (global 8th), UNSW (27th), Monash (45th), and the University of Sydney (49th), according to QS data. Employer reputation scores for these schools stood at 90 or above out of 100.

THE does not include an employer survey. Instead, the Industry Income indicator (2.5%) measures the value of research income received from commercial sources per academic staff member, normalised for purchasing power parity. While this indicator captures a university’s ability to attract industry-funded research, it speaks to the commercialisation of research rather than the employability of graduates. TEQSA’s 2022 Graduate Outcomes Survey reported that 84.5% of Australian domestic graduates were in full-time employment within four months of completing their course, and international graduate employment data collected by the QILT survey shows similarly strong outcomes, yet this information does not feed into THE. The absence of a direct employer lens helps explain why Australian universities—often lauded by global recruiters—lose ground in THE relative to QS rankings that subsidise such perceptions.

Case Study: Australian National University

The 33-rank gap for ANU between QS (34) and THE (67) is a distillation of the methodological tensions. ANU’s QS performance is underpinned by a 95.7 academic reputation score and a 93.4 employer reputation score, indicative of its historical status as a national research hub. Its proportion of international faculty (48% in QS data) and international students (44%) also lifts the international indicators near their maximum. By contrast, in THE, ANU’s teaching reputation score sits at 70.6 and its research reputation at 82.0, while its field-weighted citation impact is 88.4. Those are strong numbers but not enough to offset the lower placement forced by THE’s 30% citation weighting. ANU’s research profile is skewed toward humanities and social sciences, disciplines that accrue citations at slower rates than life sciences or engineering. A 2022 analysis by the Australian Research Council indicated that citation rates in the humanities were approximately one-fifth of those in medical sciences over a five-year window. THE’s field-weighting partially corrects for this, yet the metric continues to favour science-heavy institutions. ANU’s strength in policy and diplomacy-related research, highly valued by Australian government agencies, is largely invisible to both ranking systems.

The University of Melbourne, by contrast, maintains a narrower gap between its QS rank (14) and THE rank (37). Melbourne’s field-weighted citation impact in THE is 95.4, which cushions the effect of the heavier bibliometric load. Its academic and employer reputation scores in QS are both among the highest in the country, and its international student indicator sits at a perfect 100, so the QS formula yields an elite rank. The residual gap is still 23 places, but it is significantly smaller than ANU’s, indicating that a university’s disciplinary mix and citation performance modulate how far apart the two rankings place it.

Operational Consequences for Students and Institutions

The picture of Australian higher education shifts depending on which ranking a prospective student, employer, or scholarship committee consults. According to a 2023 survey by the International Education Association of Australia, 68% of prospective international students use rankings as a primary filter when shortlisting universities. A student relying solely on THE might conclude that ANU is the seventh-best Australian university (after Melbourne, Monash, Sydney, UNSW, Adelaide, and UQ), while a QS user would see it as the fourth-best. That perceptual difference carries real weight in labour markets where employers, specially those in China, India, and Southeast Asia, use QS rankings to screen graduate resumé entries. Shanghai’s integrated talent policy, for example, explicitly references QS top-500 rankings when awarding work permits.

Universities themselves cannot ignore the split. TEQSA, Australia’s higher education regulator, requires institutions to make public reporting accurate, but rankings are not a regulated metric. Still, marketing materials must navigate the twin narratives. A 2024 Department of Education report on international education recovery noted that 42% of education agents surveyed cited QS as the ranking system most discussed with clients, compared to 28% for THE, with the remainder referencing ShanghaiRanking or U.S. News. This asymmetric consumption shapes how universities allocate resources to reputation management, research publication strategies, and even international student recruitment drives. The pressure to boost citation counts has led several Go8 universities to introduce internal cash incentives for publishing in Scopus-indexed journals, a direct response to the THE and ShanghaiRanking performance indicators.

Structural Changes to Watch

Both ranking agencies have signalled methodological updates that will further impact Australian institutions. QS added an ‘Employment Outcomes’ indicator in 2024, drawing on data from LinkedIn, which may strengthen Melbourne and Sydney due to their large graduate populations in high-visibility industries. THE, meanwhile, has announced a revision of its citations indicator to better account for interdisciplinary research, which could slightly raise the standing of universities with strong environmental and sustainability institutes, such as UQ and ANU, starting with the 2025 edition. The Department of Home Affairs’ new Genuine Student Test, introduced in March 2024, uses ranking tiers internally for streamlined visa processing, though the specific ranking system employed has not been publicly disclosed. Universities Australia has commissioned research to develop a sector-level ranking supplement that incorporates teaching quality and graduate employment data, aiming to offer a counter-narrative to the commercial rankers, possibly feeding into future policy discussions.

The existence of two separate, authoritative ranking systems—each underpinned by defensible but incompatible methodologies—means that no single number captures the performance of an Australian university. The variation is not noise; it is a signal of the multiple dimensions across which higher education value can be assessed. For applicants and policymakers alike, reading both QS and THE, and understanding the mechanics of each, remains the only way to reconcile the disparate images they project.

FAQ

Why do QS and THE rankings differ so much for Australian universities? The difference is driven by indicator weighting. QS gives 50% weight to reputation surveys (academic and employer), which benefit historically recognised Australian institutions. THE allocates 30% to bibliometric citations, 30% to research, and only 2.5% to industry income without an employer survey. These methodological choices systematically elevate Australian universities in QS compared to THE.

Which ranking should be used when choosing an Australian university for better job prospects? If employment outcomes are paramount, the QS ranking provides two directly relevant signals: employer reputation (10%) and the newly added Employment Outcomes indicator. THE’s industry income indicator (2.5%) measures research commercialisation, not graduate employability. However, neither ranking replaces country-specific employment data, such as the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) graduate outcomes survey.

How does ANU rank in QS versus THE, and why? In the 2024 editions, ANU ranks 34th in QS and 67th in THE, a 33-position difference. ANU’s strong academic and employer reputation scores (95.7 and 93.4 out of 100 in QS) drive its QS placement, while THE’s heavier citation load and lower teaching reputation score (70.6) pull the institution down. Disciplinary focus on humanities and social sciences, which generate slower citation accrual, further explains the gap.

Do the rankings affect visa processing for international students? The Australian Department of Home Affairs applies a Genuine Student Test that uses a university’s immigration risk rating, not its public ranking, to determine evidence requirements. While high-ranking universities often correspond with lower-risk ratings, the department does not directly benchmark against QS or THE. Changes in visa processing policies are communicated through legislative instruments, not rank tables.

Are there other global rankings that show Australian universities differently? Yes. The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ShanghaiRanking) heavily relies on research output indicators such as Nobel Prizes and Nature/Science publications. Australian universities typically place lower in ShanghaiRanking than in QS but higher than in THE for certain institutions like Monash and UQ, which have strong clinical medicine and engineering research. Each ranking system serves a distinct purpose, and no single table captures the entirety of institutional performance.

How does international student ratio influence the QS ranking for Australia? International student ratio (5%) and international faculty ratio (5%) are direct headcount indicators in QS. Australian universities, with an average 26.5% international enrolment, score highly on these components. In THE, only 2.5% of the total score comes from international student ratio, and the indicator is part of a broader International Outlook pillar that also scores co-authorship, muting the effect of large international student bodies.