'A cause for concern': Canadian universities slip down world ranking list

A woman walks on the University of Toronto campus in Toronto, Sept. 8, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

An organization that ranks the best universities across the globe says its latest report shows a concerning trend that several of Canada’s institutions are slipping down its list.

The World University Rankings 2025 report by Times Higher Education, released on Tuesday, states that more than 40 per cent of Canada’s universities have declined in ranking since the previous year.

“Canada has some of the world’s very best universities, with three in the top 50 and eight in the top 200. However, the continued fall of a significant number of Canadian universities is a cause for concern,” Phil Baty, the Times Higher Education chief global affairs officer, said on Tuesday.

The University of Toronto, the country’s highest-ranked institution, remained at 21st place for the second year. The University of British Columbia held onto its 41st place and McGill University rose four places to 45th.

The report stated that of the 33 Canadian universities ranked this year, all of them – except McGill and the University of Victoria – either fell down the ranking list or stayed in the same position as last year.

All Canadian universities ranked between 100 and 200 dropped places since last year, the report found. McMaster University, which was at the 103rd spot last year, fell 13 places in 2025 to the 116th spot. The year before, it had already dropped 18 spots from 85th.

The University of Ottawa, which dropped 40 places in the 2024 edition, has dropped 14 more places this year, going from 177th last year to 191st.

The organization stated that 2,860 institutions from 133 countries and territories submitted data for their 2025 list. Only 2,000 of those institutions made the list based on their performance scores in relation to five indicators: teaching, research environment, research quality, international outlook and industry.

Teaching, which makes up 29.5 per cent of the institutions’ scores, examines issues like teaching reputation, student staff ratio, doctorate bachelor ratio and institutional income. Research environment, which makes up 29 per cent of the final score, looks at research reputation, research income and research productivity.

The third indicator, research quality, the largest percentage of the final score at 30 per cent, examines citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence.

The industry indicator looks at industry income and patents and makes up four per cent of the final score. Meanwhile, the international outlook indicator examines international students, international staff and international co-authorship, which makes up 7.5 per cent of the final score.

The report stated that an analysis of the Canadian institutions ranked in 2024 and 2025 shows that “the biggest drivers of its decline are its drops in teaching and research reputation.”

Baty noted that the federal government’s “drastic cut in the number of student visas” could also be causing the decline. In January, the government imposed limits on post-graduate work permits and announced a two-year cap on the number of international student applications it would approve.

“Alongside the existing downward pressure on ranking positions amid growing global competition comes the introduction of restrictions and caps on the number of international students, which is driving a significant drop in international student recruitment,” Baty said.

The highest-ranking institution on the 2025 list is the University of Oxford, which has maintained the top spot for a record nine years in a row. Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the second highest-ranked university in the world and in third place is Harvard University.