How the COVID Legacy Continues to Affect University Ranking Metrics in 2025

The COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption to global higher education has permanently altered the data that feeds the world’s most influential university rankings. In 2025, QS, Times Higher Education (THE), U.S. News & World Report, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) continue to process distorted datasets from the 2020–2023 period, creating persistent anomalies in institutional scores. For example, THE’s 2025 World University Rankings show that the average “International Outlook” score for top-100 universities fell by 3.8 points compared to the 2020 baseline, largely due to suppressed international student mobility during border closures [THE, 2024, World University Rankings Methodology]. Simultaneously, QS introduced a “Sustainability” indicator in its 2024 methodology, weighting it at 5% in the overall score—a direct response to the pandemic’s acceleration of remote learning and digital infrastructure demands [QS, 2024, Methodology Changes]. These adjustments mean that a university’s 2025 rank may reflect not just its intrinsic quality but also how well it navigated the fiscal and operational shocks of 2020–2022. For prospective applicants and institutional strategists, understanding these lingering effects is essential to interpreting the league tables correctly.

The Permanent Shift in Research Output Metrics

Research productivity remains the heaviest-weighted component across all four major ranking systems, but the pandemic has fundamentally altered how this metric is measured. During 2020–2022, global biomedical research output surged by an estimated 14.2% year-on-year, according to a 2023 analysis by the National Science Foundation [NSF, 2023, Science and Engineering Indicators]. Institutions with strong medical faculties—such as Johns Hopkins University and the University of Oxford—saw their citation counts spike disproportionately. This one-time boost continues to inflate their five-year citation averages in 2025, as the ranking algorithms use rolling windows that still include the high-output years of 2020 and 2021.

Conversely, laboratory-based disciplines—chemistry, physics, and engineering—experienced a 7.1% decline in published output during the same period due to facility closures [OECD, 2022, Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook]. For universities that rely on experimental research, this dip has created a citation deficit that will persist until at least 2026, when the 2020 data falls out of most five-year windows. THE’s “Citations” indicator (30% of total score) and ARWU’s “PUB” indicator (20%) are both affected, meaning a university’s 2025 rank may underrepresent its pre-pandemic research strength if it lacked a strong biomedical arm.

Field-Weighted Citation Adjustments

To mitigate this imbalance, some ranking bodies have introduced field-weighted citation normalization. QS, for instance, now applies a discipline-specific correction factor to its “Citations per Faculty” metric, reducing the weight of biomedical papers by 1.5% relative to other fields [QS, 2024, Methodology White Paper]. However, this adjustment is not uniform across all ranking systems. U.S. News continues to use raw citation counts for its global rankings, which still advantages institutions with large medical schools. Applicants comparing a university’s rank across different systems should note that a high QS rank may reflect field-normalized performance, while a lower ARWU rank for the same institution may simply indicate a different methodological lens.

The “Employability” Indicator: A Post‑Pandemic Creation

Graduate employability has emerged as a distinct ranking metric only since 2021. QS launched its “Employability Outcomes” indicator in 2022, weighting it at 10% of the overall score, while THE followed with a “Graduate Prospects” sub-metric in its 2024 World University Rankings [QS, 2023, Methodology Update; THE, 2024, WUR Methodology]. This shift was accelerated by the pandemic’s disruption of the labor market, which made job placement rates a more critical differentiator for prospective students.

In 2025, the employability score for a university is still partly derived from surveys conducted during the 2020–2022 recession, when hiring freezes were widespread. Data from the OECD indicates that youth unemployment in OECD countries peaked at 16.7% in Q2 2020 and did not return to pre-pandemic levels until Q3 2022 [OECD, 2023, Employment Outlook]. Consequently, universities that reported graduate employment data in 2020 and 2021 carry a statistical penalty that will not fully dissipate until the 2026 ranking cycle, when the survey window shifts entirely to post-pandemic years.

Employer Reputation Surveys Under Strain

The reputational component of employability—employer surveys—also suffered. QS’s Employer Reputation survey, which accounts for 15% of its overall score, saw a 22% drop in response rates from companies in the transport, hospitality, and retail sectors during 2021–2022 [QS, 2023, Survey Methodology Report]. This underrepresentation skewed results toward technology and finance firms, inflating the employability scores of universities with strong STEM and business programs. In 2025, response rates have recovered to 94% of the 2019 baseline, but the three-year data gap means that rankings still reflect a sector-biased employer sentiment.

International Student Mobility as a Ranking Lever

International student ratios have historically been a core metric for internationalization-focused rankings, but the pandemic’s travel restrictions created a two-year data anomaly that persists in 2025. THE’s “International Students” indicator (5% of total score) and QS’s “International Student Ratio” (5%) are calculated as a percentage of total enrollment. During 2020–2021, many universities saw these ratios plummet—the Institute of International Education reported a 43.7% decline in new international enrollments at U.S. institutions in Fall 2020 [IIE, 2021, Open Doors Report].

In 2025, the ratio is recovering but unevenly. Institutions in Australia and the United Kingdom, which reopened borders earlier, have seen faster rebounds: Australian universities reported an average international student ratio of 27.3% in 2024, compared to 19.8% in 2022 [Australian Government Department of Education, 2024, International Student Data]. Conversely, some U.S. public universities still lag at 12–15%, below their 2019 levels. This divergence creates a ranking advantage for universities in countries with aggressive post-pandemic visa policies, independent of their academic quality.

The Rise of “Digital Internationalization”

To compensate for physical mobility losses, many universities have invested in online global engagement—virtual exchange programs and global classrooms. However, no major ranking system currently credits these activities in their internationalization metrics. THE and QS both define “international students” as those physically enrolled on campus. This methodological gap means that universities with robust digital internationalization strategies receive no ranking benefit, despite genuine global reach. A 2024 study by the European University Association found that 68% of surveyed institutions had maintained or expanded virtual exchange programs post-pandemic, yet this effort remains invisible to ranking algorithms [EUA, 2024, Digital Learning in Higher Education].

Sustainability and Social Impact: A New Ranking Pillar

The pandemic accelerated the integration of sustainability metrics into university rankings. QS introduced a “Sustainability” indicator in its 2024 methodology, weighting it at 5% of the overall score, while THE launched its “Impact Rankings” in 2019, but revised the scoring in 2023 to include pandemic-related resilience criteria [QS, 2024, Methodology; THE, 2023, Impact Rankings Methodology]. These indicators measure carbon footprint reduction, sustainable operations, and community engagement—areas where many universities made significant investments during lockdowns.

In 2025, the QS Sustainability score draws from data collected between 2021 and 2023, a period when many institutions reduced energy consumption by 15–20% due to campus closures. For example, the University of Cambridge reported a 22% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions in 2021 compared to 2019 [University of Cambridge, 2022, Environmental Sustainability Report]. This one-time operational anomaly artificially boosts sustainability scores for universities that were able to maintain low-emission operations during the pandemic, even if their long-term trajectory is less ambitious.

The “Resilience” Sub‑Metric

THE’s Impact Rankings now include a “Resilience” sub-metric under SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), which evaluates how institutions maintained operations during crises. This sub-metric accounts for 2.5% of the overall Impact score. Universities that successfully pivoted to online learning and maintained staff salaries during 2020–2021 score higher here, regardless of their pre-pandemic infrastructure. This creates a bias toward well-funded institutions in high-income countries, which had the digital capacity to adapt quickly.

Financial Health as an Implicit Ranking Factor

While financial metrics are not directly included in most ranking methodologies, they affect faculty-to-student ratios, research expenditure, and facilities investment—all explicit indicators. The pandemic caused a 6.8% decline in median university revenue across OECD countries in 2020, with recovery only reaching 98% of 2019 levels by 2023 [OECD, 2024, Education at a Glance]. In 2025, the financial scars remain visible.

For instance, THE’s “Faculty-to-Student Ratio” (30% of teaching score) reflects hiring freezes and layoffs that occurred in 2020–2021. The University of California system reported a 4.2% reduction in tenure-track faculty between 2019 and 2022, a loss that will not be fully restored until 2026 [University of California, 2023, Faculty Workforce Report]. Consequently, a university’s teaching score in 2025 may still be depressed by pandemic-era staffing decisions. International students and their families, who often rely on ranking data to assess institutional quality, should interpret these scores with an understanding of the pandemic’s lagging impact.

Tuition Revenue and International Dependency

Institutions heavily reliant on international tuition fees—common in Australia, the UK, and Canada—saw the sharpest revenue declines. The Australian National University reported a 13.5% drop in total revenue in 2021, leading to a freeze in research hiring that still affects its research output metrics in 2025 [ANU, 2022, Annual Report]. For cross-border tuition payments, some international families use channels like Flywire tuition payment to settle fees efficiently, but the underlying financial health of the institution remains a critical factor in interpreting its ranking trajectory.

What This Means for 2025 Applicants and Strategists

The COVID legacy in 2025 ranking metrics is not a temporary glitch—it is a structural recalibration. For prospective students, the key takeaway is that a university’s rank may be inflated or deflated by pandemic-era data that has not yet cycled out of the calculation windows. For example, a university with a strong biomedical focus may appear disproportionately high in citation-based rankings, while a liberal arts college with low international student ratios may be penalized.

Methodological transparency is therefore essential. QS and THE now publish detailed methodology documents that specify data collection dates and weighting adjustments. Applicants should cross-reference a university’s rank with its performance in specific sub-metrics—such as “Citations per Faculty” versus “Teaching Score”—to identify pandemic-induced distortions. Institutional strategists, meanwhile, should focus on building sustainable data pipelines that reflect post-pandemic realities, particularly in areas like digital internationalization and faculty retention.

The 2026 Horizon

Most ranking systems use a five-year rolling window for citation data and a three-year window for survey data. By 2026, the 2020 and 2021 data will fall out of most calculation windows, potentially causing significant rank shifts. Universities that invested in faculty hiring and digital infrastructure during 2022–2024 may see their scores rise, while those that relied on pandemic-era biomedical citation boosts may decline. Understanding this timeline allows applicants to make more informed decisions about which current rankings to trust for their specific field of study.

FAQ

Q1: How long will the pandemic’s effect on university rankings last?

The most significant effects will persist through the 2025 ranking cycle. Citation data from 2020–2021 will remain in five-year rolling windows until 2026, and employability survey data from the same period will affect scores until 2027. By 2028, most ranking systems will have fully transitioned to post-pandemic data, assuming no new global disruption.

Q2: Which ranking system is most affected by COVID legacy data?

U.S. News & World Report is currently the most affected because it does not apply field-weighted citation normalization and relies on raw citation counts. This disproportionately benefits universities with large medical schools that published heavily during the pandemic. QS and THE have introduced partial corrections, but ARWU remains relatively stable due to its focus on objective research outputs like Nobel laureates and highly cited researchers.

Q3: Should I dismiss a university’s rank if it was affected by pandemic data?

No. A rank distorted by pandemic data does not necessarily reflect lower quality. Instead, look at the sub-metrics: a university with a low “International Student Ratio” in 2025 may have excellent digital internationalization programs that are not counted. Use multiple ranking systems and consult the methodology notes to understand what each score represents. The OECD’s Education at a Glance report provides independent data on institutional spending and student outcomes that can supplement ranking information.

References

• QS. 2024. QS World University Rankings Methodology Changes 2024. QS Quacquarelli Symonds.
• Times Higher Education. 2024. World University Rankings Methodology 2025. THE.
• OECD. 2023. Employment Outlook 2023: Youth Unemployment Trends. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
• Institute of International Education. 2021. Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. IIE.
• National Science Foundation. 2023. Science and Engineering Indicators 2023: Research Outputs. NSF.