Higher Education in Asia: The Changing World Rankings of Asian Higher Education Institutions (2015-2025)

This research aims to comparatively examine the changing appearance of world rankings of Asian HEIs among their global competitors from 2015 to 2025. The study group consists of the top five HEIs indexed in the 2024 Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings from the nine countries with the largest population in Asia and the top five HEIs indexed in the 2025 Times Higher Education World University Rankings from the Russian Federation. The study found that HEIs in China, Japan, and Russia were the most stable examples that performed positively regarding world rankings. Although there was no solid continuity, the rankings of Indian HEIs generally showed a positive momentum. HEIs in Vietnam and Bangladesh did not have ongoing success because they were in the ranking index only for the last couple of years. HEIs in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Pakistan either performed in a neutral direction with slight fluctuations or showed decreasing ranking trends. The results revealed that the global rankings of HEIs in most Asian countries, except Japan, China, and Russia, lag behind their international competitors. Therefore, HEIs in most Asian countries could not establish a stable profile against their international competitors in global rankings.