Rankings show priorities

THE recently revealed QS World Universities Rankings 2027 have become a topic of considerable conversation for Pakistani social and print media. Reports and posts on the subject have mainly pointed out that no Pakistani university has been ranked among the world’s top 350 universities. The Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), at 381, is our top entry in the QS rankings. However, we should remember that a number of individual programmes — though not the overall university position — are ranked much higher. Nust, the University of Engineering & Technology and the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute have engineering programmes ranked in the 100-200 range; Lums and IBA have similar rankings for economics, business and social science programmes; AKU is ranked high for medicine programmes.

The rankings are, at best, a rough measure of quality. But they do reveal a lot. If we do not have a university in the top 350, it does say quite a bit about the priority accorded to education in Pakistan. And, knowing our budget allocations for education in general as well as higher education, and our other spending priorities, it is not a surprise. If our government spends less than one per cent of GDP on education, including expenditure on school education, is it any surprise that we do not have any universities in the top 350?

Lest you feel that resources are not important, do keep in mind that among the top 100 universities, apart from developed and high-income countries (the US, UK, Europe, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, China etc.), Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Argentina are the only three countries with one university each in the rankings.

The countries with universities in the top 200 rankings include: Qatar (1), India (3), Chile (2), Brazil (1), Mexico (2), the UAE (1), Kazakhstan (1), South Africa (1), Indonesia (1), Malaysia (4), Saudi Arabia (3) and Argentina (1). As you can see, these are all countries whose per capita income is much higher than Pakistan’s and whose spending on education as a percentage of GDP is also much more.

The ‘World Universities Rankings’ may be a rough measure of quality. But they do reveal a lot.

Another indication that resources matter comes from university budgets and endowments. MIT, ranked the top in QS rankings, has an endowment of $27.4 billion and an operational budget of $6bn a year. Imperial College has a budget of $1.7bn, Stanford University $8.7bn, and the University of Oxford $3.6bn. Private American universities are based on the endowment model and top universities have endowments going into billions of dollars: MIT $27.4bn (as mentioned above), Stanford $40.8bn and Harvard $55.7bn. The top European, Chinese and Singaporean universities are given large transfers from the government every year. Pakistani universities do not get much money from the government and none, private or public, have any endowments to speak of.

IIT Delhi, ranked at 118, the top Indian university in the rankings. It has an estimated operational budget of $100-150 million. QAU, the top ranked Pakistani university, has a budget estimated around $15m. Cornell University spends some $1 billion per year on research. Top Chinese universities spend multiples of that. IIT salaries for faculty, for comparable levels, are around $25,000 per year to $6,500 for QAU!

So, it would have been a surprise if a Pakistani university was in the top 100 or 200. But, more importantly, had even one Pakistani university been so ranked, it would not have said much for the state of higher education in the country as a whole. Countries that have strong higher education sectors, traditionally developed ones or newly emerging ones like China, all have numerous universities in the top tier. Multiple universities at the top indicates the priority for higher education as well as the depth and breadth of quality available in the country.

By design or by default — though I think it is more by design — the variables in the QS rankings do give a certain advantage to older, larger, richer and more established universities. Each ranking has a slightly different way of arriving at variables of importance. QS rankings are based on five areas: research and discovery (relative weight 50pc), employability and outcome (20pc), learning experience (10pc), global engagement (15pc) and sustainability (5pc). This means research weighs in quite heavily. Within research, academic reputation accounts for 30pc and faculty citations 20pc. Academic reputation, of course, gives a certain advantage to older, richer and more established universities and universities in developed or high-income countries. Similarly, in the employability category, employer reputation accounts for 15pc of the total 20pc weight, with 5pc for employment outcomes. Again, these tilt more towards established universities and those from richer countries. Finally, the 15pc metric for global engagement, based on the international faculty ratio, international collaborations and international student ratio, also favour traditional universities and destination countries.

The effect of the above can be seen in the rankings of some of the top Chinese universities. The top Chinese universities, ranking as high as 13 and 14 in the world, do exceptionally well on research and teaching variables, but are fairly average or do poorly on the international faculty and international student ratios. But this is hardly a reflection on the universities, given how the Chinese economy and political system have been evolving. The same would hold true for universities attempting to follow the development trajectory. Can one think of a university in Pakistan today with a lot of students from a diverse range of countries?

Though it is a shame that we do not have top-ranked universities in the country, it would actually be a surprise if we did have one or a few. That would be such an anomaly. We do not spend the type of money that quality higher education institutions, private or public, need. We do not have money for research or faculty salaries. So, how do we get top-ranked universities? More importantly, should we even try for one to reach the top 100 or 200 when the entire higher education sector is plagued with serious challenges? Or should we focus on broader measures that align incentives with better performance across the sector and then support top-tier public and private universities to scale newer heights?

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2026 ...