IOWA CITY — The University of Iowa and Iowa State University both suffered significant drops in U.S. News & World Report's 2024-2025 “World's Best Colleges” rankings, released Tuesday, with the University of Iowa dropping 45 places and Iowa State dropping 81 places.
In the most recent international rankings, the 2022-23 World Rankings, UI was ranked 180th out of 2,000 universities in 95 countries, but in the rankings released today, it is ranked 225th out of 2,250 campuses in 104 countries.
This is a significantly lower ranking than the 10 comparable campuses the board selected for comparison.
ISU was ranked 263rd in the last rankings but dropped to 344th in the latest rankings, placing it in the middle of the Board of Trustees' rankings for universities.
The University of Northern Iowa was not ranked either year.
Looking back five years, UI has dropped 72 places from 153rd in 2018. ISU has dropped 140 places from 204th in 2018.
“UI's global rankings are very different from the U.S. rankings that most people are familiar with,” UI spokesman Steve Schmadeke told The Gazette on Monday, noting that 25 percent of a university's score in the global comparison is based on reputation surveys conducted by an outside firm.
“Universities don't attach much importance to global rankings because they have a narrow focus that doesn't take into account student access, success and outcomes, and the criteria are unclear,” he said.
U.S. News touts the 10th annual international rankings, based “entirely on academic research and global and regional reputation,” as a guide for the growing number of students seeking higher education across borders. The increase was confirmed by the U.S. State Department in November, when it released a report showing that international student enrollment at U.S. universities has rebounded sharply to pre-pandemic levels, growing 12 percent in the 2022-23 academic year.
But the revival has not materialized at Iowa's public universities.
Ten years ago, in 2014, the UI reported an undergraduate international student population of 2,430, but most recently, for fall 2023, that number is down to 350. This reduces the percentage of undergraduate international students from 11% in 2014 to 1.6% in 2023.
ISU is seeing its undergraduate international student population drop from 2,216 in 2014 to 875 in fall 2023. And UNI is reporting its undergraduate international student population will drop from 487 in 2014 to 103 in 2023.
At the graduate level, the international student numbers are more promising, with UI’s number at 1,116 in 2023, the same number as 1,188 a decade ago. ISU’s number of international students was 1,790 in 2014, but will be 1,835 in 2023. And UNI’s number of international students has increased from 139 in 2014 to 72.
According to Schmadeke, enrolment numbers “are not a factor in world rankings.”
The total number of international students, including graduate and professional students, is beginning to increase, said Russell Ganim, dean of international programs at the UI. He said the decline at the undergraduate level is expected given that China is sending fewer students overseas.
Russell Ganim, dean of international programs at the University of Iowa, poses for a portrait on Jan. 3, 2020. (Jim Slosiak/The Gazette)
“But we are now attracting more international students from a broader and more diverse range of countries,” he said. “As a result, we are increasing our recruitment efforts in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia because we believe more students from these regions will ultimately come to Iowa.”
“It's impossible to compare.”
As for the U.S. News global rankings, Schmadeke emphasized that there are significant differences between them and the more commonly cited national rankings, which are based on data collected by U.S. News such as entrance test scores, graduation rates, retention rates, class sizes and financial resources.
According to U.S. News guidance, “These types of data are not included in the Best Global Universities rankings because student- and school-specific data are not internationally comparable. Because these countries do not have admissions tests similar to the SAT, ACT, LSAT, GMAT, GRE, or MCAT used in the U.S., data measuring aspects of the undergraduate or graduate student experience are either not available or the data are not available in a uniform way that can be used for international comparisons.”
In terms of the methodology, 25% of the global rankings are based on reputation surveys, 65% are based on factors related to publications, citations and conferences, and 10% is related to “international collaboration”.
U.S. News did not report any changes to the methodology for this year's global rankings, but did report changes to the number of campuses ranked, the countries included, and the specific subject areas assessed.
Of the more than 2,000 universities in over 100 countries, China had the most universities on the list with 396, followed by the United States with 283 and Japan with 112.
The United States has the most universities in the top 10 with seven, including Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford. The UK has the remaining three in the top 10, including the University of Oxford at number four and the University of Cambridge at number six.
UI, ISU colleagues
While many of the top-ranked universities in the U.S. college rankings are private, six of the top 21 are public, including UI and ISU. The only public universities to make it into the top 10 are the University of California, Berkeley at number four and the University of Washington at number seven.
The only other Big Ten university and UI peer institution to make the top 21 in the world was the University of Michigan, at No. 19. UI ranked lower than all 10 of its peer institutions assigned by the Board of Regents: six schools ranked in the top 100 and all 10 of its peer institutions ranked in the top 150.
ISU placed in the middle of its peer group of teams in the world rankings assigned by the Board of Governors, with five schools ranked higher and five lower.
UI, ISU peer rankings
Here's how the University of Iowa and Iowa State University compare to peer campuses assigned by the Board of Regents in U.S. News & World Report's new global rankings.
UI Peer:
University of Michigan — #19
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — #47
Ohio State University — #61
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis — #63
University of Wisconsin-Madison — #74
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign — #100
University of Arizona — #115
Michigan State University — #123
Indiana University Bloomington — #135
University of Utah — #150
University of Iowa — #225
ISU Colleagues:
Michigan State University — #123
Purdue University — #167
North Carolina State University — #262
Virginia Tech — #278
Colorado State University — #311
Iowa State University — #344
Oregon State University — #365
University of Missouri-Columbia — #466
University of Nebraska-Lincoln — #497
Kansas State University — #616
Oklahoma State University — #694
Source: Board of Trustees, U.S. News & World Report
Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.
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