American Universities Sliding Rank : Chinese Academia Rising

"There is a big shift coming, a bit of a new world order in global dominance of higher education and research."

"There is a risk of the trend continuing, and potential decline."

"I use the word 'decline' very carefully. It's not as if U.S. schools are getting demonstrably worse, it's just the global competition."

"Other nations are making more rapid progress."

Phil Baty, chief global affairs officer, Times Higher Education

A global realignment in higher education is underway, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2026. The data reveal a shifting balance of academic power: U.S. institutions are slipping, even as leading universities across Asia continue to climb. Insight Into Academia

 

In the early 2000s, global university ranking based on scientific output -- as an example, published journal articles -- was dominated by American universities based on the record that among the top ten rated academic institutions worldwide, seven U.S. schools of higher learning would be on that top list, Harvard rated above all others at number 1. During that same period one Chinese academy, Zhejiang University, would be recognized as among the top 25. 

 

The last quarter century has seen quite the change. Zhejiang University now sits at the number one position, nudging Harvard aside. The list, compiled from the Leiden Rankings from the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, now places seven other Chinese schools as well among the top ten rather than the American universities that used to occupy the high ratings.  

 

While China has been committing billions in direct support to its universities, at the same time studiously focusing on creating conditions to make them appealing as top-rated academic institutions abroad, attractive to researchers globally, in the United States government funding for American universities has not kept pace. On the other hand, large philanthropic endowments ensure that American universities aren't running short of operating expenses, at the very least.

 

 

China has also been proffering visas for science and technology graduates of elite foreign universities to travel to China to study or for business. "China has a boatload of money in higher education that it didn't have 20 years ago", explained Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, an education consulting company located in Toronto.

 

Harvard, so recently assured the top spot on global university rankings has dropped to number 3. Chinese universities have been steadily ascending in rankings that emphasize volume and quality of research production. U.S. schools dependent on the federal government to fund scientific initiatives now face an administration under President Donald Trump that is far less interested in propping up U.S. universities, a trend that predated his administration, even if not to the slashing method he employs. 

 

It is not that American universities suddenly fail to produce critical scientific papers published in scientific journals. Almost all continue to produce significantly more research at the present time than their output of several decades back. So the issue is not encapsulated as falling production. The six prominent U.S. universities once at the top of the pack -- University of Michigan; University of California, Los Angeles; Johns Hopkins in Maryland; the University of Washington in Seattle; the University of Pennsylvania; and Stanford University in California -- are all producing more research than they had, two decades earlier.

 

Harvard is declining in the rankings of top research universities. (Photo by Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)

The Leiden rankings take into account papers and citations contained in the Web of Science, a database set of academic publications which is operated by Clarivate, a data and analytics company, points out Mark Neijssel, director of services for the Centre for Science and Technology Studies. And, quite simply put, Chinese universities are now out-and-over-producing research papers to place them in the top rankings, as U.S. universities slip behind.

 

A former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rafael Reif, stated last year on a podcast that "The number of papers and the quality of the papers coming from China are outstanding", and are "dwarfing what we're doing in the U.S." There is also a distinction to be made on where the research between the two competing nations focus on: China's prominence is in disciplines such a chemistry and environmental sciences, while the United States and Europe are dominant in general biology and medical sciences.

 

Zhejiang University (Courtesy: X | @ZJU_China)