Melbourne Law School has risen one place to be named the 10th-best law faculty in the world in a new global ranking, despite a year of student unrest over maladministration, bureaucratic failures and poor communication that resulted in its dean’s resignation two weeks ago.
The 2024 QS World University Rankings by Subject named nine Australian universities as running academic programs in 17 subject areas that earned them a place in the international top 10.
Three universities – Queensland, Monash and Curtin – have programs that QS deemed the second best in the world. For UQ that was in sports-related fields, for Monash it was pharmacy and pharmacology, and for Curtin it was mineral and mining engineering.
While Melbourne University is usually the highest-ranked Australian university overall, it only had two disciplines in the QS world top 10 – sports-related fields, where it was ninth, as well as law.
Andrew Norton, a higher education policy expert from Australian National University, said rankings were important for potential students when considering where to study.
However, he noted that rankings mostly focused on research performance, not the experience of students.
“Some international students, especially from China, want degrees from highly ranked universities,” Mr Norton said.
“At these universities they pay fees that are sometimes double the cost of the same course at a lower-ranked university. But rankings either don’t include student experience at all or use unreliable surveys of academics and employers.”
Melbourne Law School, which is eighth best in the world on the Times Higher Education’s ranking, has been the subject of extensive media coverage after a year of deep student dissatisfaction with how its juris doctor program was being run.
Students complained of being given the wrong assessments, having exam results held up, being berated by invigilators after being told different exam rules, and not being able to enrol in elective subjects due to lack of places – leaving some unable to complete their degrees.
Of the 1434 students enrolled in the juris doctor program in 2023, 883 were domestic fee-paying students ($42,784 a year for three years), 335 were in government-supported places ($15,132 a year, indexed) and 216 were full-fee international students ($46,176).
Mr Norton said potential students needed to take rankings with a grain of salt.
“Australia’s national student experience survey shows that the universities international students choose often have below-average student satisfaction,” he said. “Students should check these results and listen to what current students say about their experience.”
However, Mr Norton said finding a reliable source of student feedback was not straightforward.
ANU received the most top-10 subject rankings in this year’s QS assessment: politics and international studies (eighth place), archaeology (eighth), philosophy (ninth), anthropology (ninth) and development studies (10th).
afr.com
