Canadian universities slide in world rankings as schools in China and Hong Kong climb

Top three Canadian universities have slipped in global rankings this year in the face of global competition while the universities in China and Hong Kong are scaling up in the competition ladder.

Only three Canadian universities managed to book spots in top 100 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the most credible and globally-accepted ranking system.

The University of Toronto slipped from No 19 to 22, the University of British Columbia from 34 to 36 while and McGill University tumbled from 38 to 42 in the latest rankings release last week.

Most of the universities in the top 20 are private institutions in the United States and the UK. They benefit from rich and long-established endowments, high tuition fees and industry income.

This year’s list also shows schools in China and Hong Kong are climbing the rating ladder with two Chinese universities leaping ahead by double digits to overtake UBC and McGill, according to the Times report released on Wednesday.

“What is threatening Canada is that other nations are investing and improving, which means someone else has to move down,” said Phil Baty, editor of the rankings.

“This year’s decline will likely fuel the debate over whether Canada can keep up, or whether it wants to.

“It is not the first time that all of the top three institutions have declined in ranking at the same time: UBC and McGill experienced steeper drops in 2012,” according to reports.

However, four of the eight Canadian universities that made it into the top 200 had a better showing this year than in 2015.

But, investments in China raise the urgency of the situation.

The rankings are considered to be a crucial tool for recruiting students, faculty and staff, and for further investment from industry and international collaborations.

“The surveys of employers have shown that graduates from the most highly rated universities are more competitive in the labour market.”

“The rankings are hugely important for students and their families in helping them make an important decision about who to trust with [their] education, and how to invest a substantial amount of money,” Baty said.

However, long-term trends in Canada are still strong, said Meric Gertler, president of the University of Toronto, which dropped three spots to No. 22 after spending the prior six years in a band between 17 and 21.

Most of the universities in the top 20 are private institutions in the United States and the UK, Dr Gertler said. They benefit from rich and long-established endowments, high tuition fees and industry income.

Our “return on investment is pretty good if you consider the funding per student that we work with,” Dr Gertler said.

Still, the system’s overall showing this year should provoke a conversation, he added.

“To to what extent do we value high performance in education?” he asked, and added: “To me, it speaks volumes about the need for Canada to double down on its investment both in research and teaching.”

China has poured billions into its elite institutions to increase their research capacity over the last several years. A year ago, the country announced that it wanted to see six of its universities crack the elite Top 15 universities by 2030.

In comparison, the Canada First Research Excellence Fund is investing $1.5-billion over 10 years in university-based research projects in the hope that the money will propel the grant-winners onto the world stage.

For China, Baty said, “the rankings go far beyond the sector and are seen as geopolitical indicators.”

“It’s about ‘are we seeing this huge investment pay off? Are we challenging the traditional elites?’”

Canada’s highest-ranked universities have long argued that federal and provincial governments must fund post-secondary education in a way that recognises the outsized economic and research contribution made by the top schools.

“The big dilemma is should Canada be happy with a strong system,” Baty said adding “You don’t just have one or two superstars and a weak system.”

“You have two or three in the top, and a few in the 100-range, and some in the 200-area. That’s because there has been a tradition of equal funding.”

According to a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development released last week, Canadian public spending per student in post-secondary education falls around the OECD average.

But other countries that spend only slightly more have had phenomenal success placing more of their institutions in the top 100. Last year, for example, Netherlands counted nine universities above that marker.

As in Germany, universities in the Netherlands specialise in research that could lead to further graduate study or offer more professional training that gets students ready for work after they graduate.

“The countries that are really efficient are small countries,” said Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates. “Netherlands have really thought about differentiation. In some ways they are much more of an interesting model for a province like Ontario,” he said.