UBA dropped 19 places in the world ranking due to politicization and strikes

Argentinian universities, especially Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), recorded a decline in the new Global 2000 ranking prepared by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR).

According to various experts, this drop is mainly due to factors related to the politicization of academic life and the repeated teachers' strikes that disrupt the quality of teaching.

Seven higher education institutions in the country managed to remain among the top 2,000 universities in the world for 2025. However, six of them fell in the ranking compared to the previous year.

CWUR described the deterioration in the positioning of Argentinian universities as "abrupt." Regarding UBA, which dropped 19 places, various analysts pointed out two main aspects among the highlighted causes of the decline.

On one hand, the diversion of public funds and academic efforts toward left-wing ideological activism within the university environment, as occurred with the promotion of political campaigns such as Lula Levy's, the failed radical candidate who, despite having the support of UBA's entire apparatus, did not even manage to enter the Buenos Aires legislature.

On the other hand, attention is also drawn to the impact of union measures that, with multiple days of strikes, reduce the pace and quality of teaching at the university.

In this context, there is also a reminder of the numerous illegal "occupations" by left-wing activists at various UBA faculties a few months ago, something that destroyed entire semesters, to protest against the government of Javier Milei.

This explains that when the university acts more as a political actor than as a center for education and research, it loses ground to other international institutions.

The repetition of interruptions in the academic calendar, such as frequent teachers' strikes, ends up damaging both the performance and the overall prestige of the educational institutions.

University rankings

For all these reasons, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), although it remains the best positioned in the country, dropped 19 spots and was ranked 409th in the ranking.

Other universities that fell for the same reason were Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP), Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC), Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR), Universidad Nacional del Litoral (UNL), Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (UNCUYO), and Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata.

At the top of the ranking, Harvard University (United States) once again took first place, achieving a perfect score of 100 points.

Based on that reference and according to different evaluation criteria, CWUR assigned the corresponding score to each university.

The global "top five" was completed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford, Cambridge, and Oxford, respectively.