Collaboration

While some took the Collaboration for a Sustainable Future report as a sign of potential mergers and a solution to financial challenges, others took it at face value, namely collaboration. Considering the number of articles that explicitly talked about it or at least touched on it throughout the year following the report, it should have come as no surprise that collaboration became an unofficial theme of the 2025 QS Higher Ed Summit: Asia Pacific in November.

After February, we learnt in April (Issue 28) just how useful neighbours can be in achieving research, academic and community outcomes. Excellence begets excellence, it would seem, with experts from the University of New South Wales, Australia, finding roughly a third of all universities in the world’s top 100 are located within 25km (15.5 miles) of another institution also within the top 100.

But it’s not only the top institutions that understand the value of working together. Regional clusters are popping up all over the world, taking forms that include government-led mergers and cross-border alliances, according to Jamil Salmi, a global expert in tertiary education.

Likewise, the economy can be bolstered because of collaboration. According to one study, “The Economic Impact of Universities: Evidence from Across the Globe”, by the US’ National Bureau of Economic Research: “Doubling the number of universities is associated with over 4 percent higher GDP per capita in a region.”

By May (Issue 29), the political applications of collaboration also became clearer. Rather than “soft power”, universities, through their research, academic and student internationalisation efforts, have been engaging in “knowledge diplomacy”. Doing so has the potential for significant returns.

“Through such initiatives, Gulf nations export values like tolerance, innovation and development. Internationalisation of education is a potent tool in shaping global narratives,” Professor Anas Ratib ALSoud, Executive Director of the Association of Arab Universities told us.

“When countries host international campuses, engage in joint research, or recruit international students, they are not just educating, they are building bridges, exporting culture, and fostering long-term influence.”

The importance of international collaboration will also only increase, at least in the short-term, according to a spokesperson from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD): “As geopolitical tensions rise, spaces for dialogue and cooperation become more important – not less.”

Student choice

The skills agenda permeated throughout 2025, pushed, in part, by the release of the QS World Future Skills Index early in the year. But while skills needs were mentioned in a number of disparate conversations and stories, they didn’t take centre stage as much as might be assumed. Instead, they underscored conversations; a flavour, rather than a main course.

Consequently, skills needs and the skills agenda instead shaped other conversations around student choice. Do students follow their passions or follow economic returns? What is their right choice?

“STEM is in, Shakespeare is out,” we discovered in March (Issue 27). A mixture of issues, including the rising cost of a university education and therefore questions over ROI, has seen more students opt for a degree that is “useful”. But questions remain around burnout, as well as the disruption AI might have on those so-called “useful” degrees. If students aren’t following their passions, but are simultaneously concerned about burnout, there might be something else they’re considering.

“Many students are now gravitating towards disciplines that offer the potential to make meaningful contributions to society and the environment, often via the development of new technologies,” Gerhard Müller, Senior Vice-President for Academic and Student Affairs at the Technical University of Munich in Germany told QS Insights.

By this edition, the conversation had changed again (read “The ‘Plus’ factor” for more details). But before we got there, in May (Issue 29), we learned that implicitly “useless” degrees might be offering a lot more value than first thought. When enjoying a croissant (bakery science), watching our favourite blockbusters (puppet arts), or appreciating culture (folklore), we’re often experiencing the benefits of unusual degrees.

But it came with a stark warning, particularly in light of the financial themes of the year. “When you make cuts, you look at the low hanging fruit, and maybe these programmes can look like the low hanging fruit." programme leader of Kansas State University’s Bakery Science and Management Aaron Clanton told QS Insights.

That warning came to fruition a few months later, when in July (Issue 31), we explored the culls to universities’ creative arts programmes. While debate focussed on the value of the degrees (despite QS Insights earlier showing they clearly had it), there were some warnings around how removing these programmes could in turn reduce career access.

“Cuts to creative degrees would narrow the already limited pathways into the creative workforce for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds,” Emily Hopkins, a policy advisor at The Creative PEC explained to us.

“With the workforce already dominated by those from managerial and professional households, making up 60 percent of the working population in subsectors like film, TV and photography, removing one of the main routes into the sector would further entrench inequalities.”

Somewhat surprisingly, in the same issue, we managed to highlight a discrepancy. While universities were questioning the value and usefulness of creative degrees, business schools were seeing them pay dividends for their graduates.

“We take the same techniques and tools used to help our musicians prepare to perform and apply those to training business students,” Royal College of Music’s Dr George Waddell, a Performance Research and Innovation Fellow at their Centre for Performance Science, told us.

Even more surprisingly, however, was the cover story for July, which highlighted that whether or not a degree was “useful”, students’ ability to find a job after graduation was only getting more challenging. In the US, the UK and Canada (as well as elsewhere), youth unemployment rates have risen over the past decades, as entry-level positions have been reduced, thanks to myriad factors. There is still hope for universities, however.

“As job roles evolve and increasingly overlap, graduates must be equipped to handle ambiguity, demonstrate initiative and cultivate a comprehensive business perspective,” said Sadia Cuthbert, Director of Careers at Cambridge Judge Business School in the UK at the time. “In this environment, clarity and strong communication skills become even more essential for success.”

Vivienne Stern, CEO of Universities UK, meanwhile, reminded us: “If you learn more you tend to earn more — on average, graduates earn over a third more by the time they are in their thirties than those who chose not to attend university at 18.”

Finally, we also came to understand the paradox uncovered in March. While international student numbers were expected to grow overall, traditional markets had decreased revenue expectations because students will choose to go elsewhere. With plenty of options in emerging markets (as well as a few established, non-Anglophone destinations), international students are looking elsewhere for education.

But all is not lost, and to find out more, read the full article, which I’ve selected as my pick from the year.

Artificial intelligence

AI continued to capture the imaginations of just about everyone throughout 2025, universities included. The broad themes sat around its potential not only as an educating tool, but also as a tool to recruit students. But, for the optimism, there was also some pessimism around the damage it could cause, as well as caution and downright ugliness.

The good

The year started off very positively, particularly in April (issue 28), which carried several stories about the potential impact of AI. One novel idea was that AI could be both the cause of and solution to the new skills challenge. That is, while AI literacy and skills are needed in the current and future workplace, AI could be used to teach them.

“What I would call a curriculum for life [is] where content can be easily assembled to create a unique educational package for each student,” said Brian Cameron, Associate Dean for Professional Graduate Programs and Executive Education at Smeal College of Business in the US.

“Any institution that tries to design a one-size-fits-all curriculum is missing the mark, because that isn’t how the world works today. You have to be architects and build this from the ground up, enabling real interplay between various programmes for it to be effective.”

In the same issue, we explored how universities are responding to the impact AI is having on the curriculum and learning. LinkedInification, weak ties and modular credentials have been some of the words used to explore new ways of giving students and employers what they need.

By June (Issue 30), the message had evolved to a future-focussed, hopeful look at what AI could do for educators themselves. Rather than replace humans, AI could be used to enhance humanity, especially in the classroom.

“Let the machines attend to tasks that are routine in nature, like grading, quizzes and content delivery, and provide the teachers with more time and opportunity to engage with students and hold discussions,” Director at India’s IIM Indore Professor Himanshu Rai told QS Insights.

The bad

While April was a big month for AI and education, not all the news was positive. The cover story, “Making decisions”, highlighted what AI currently isn’t very good at: differentiating candidates and identifying unique qualities. As some experts told QS Insights, this is by design; AI algorithms (by their name) are trained to look for and understand patterns. Being unique can be exclusionary.

In terms of being unique, there’s the additional challenge that most universities offer similar, but not completely identical, courses and degree programmes. Translating these differences, or assessing things such as international experiences, should be left to humans.

“The only dangerous thing I see is letting AI make decisions on our behalf. It’s about fairness and ethical use of AI,” Dr Tamim Elbasha, Associate Dean – Learning and Quality Development at Audencia Business School in France said at the time.

In terms of appropriate usage for AI, we also learned about the legal consequences universities might face for falsely accusing and punishing students for using AI. Several students took legal action against their institutions after expulsions or other academic punishments, protesting that they had not used AI at all.

“Such instances underscore that overreliance on AI-detection tools and the absence of AI governance policies, can lead to inequitable outcomes and expose institutions to litigation,” Vangelis Tsiligkiris, Professor of International Education at Nottingham Business School told QS Insights.

And despite this warning, clarity around AI policies was still missing in July (Issue 31), when educators told us that “true academic integrity in the AI era requires systemic pedagogical redesign, not just declarations”. Should students disclose their AI usage? Maybe.

“Disclosure can encourage transparency and critical reflection, but it is not a viable long-term strategy for ensuring academic integrity,” said Dr Chahna Gonsalves, a Senior Lecturer in Marketing (Education) at King’s Business School, King’s College London.

Going a step further, Professor Jeannie Marie Paterson, Director of the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics at Australia’s University of Melbourne told us: “It is increasingly difficult to draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate uses.”

The ugly

While students’ use of AI, and disclosure or penalties made the biggest headlines, two pieces in June (Issue 30) and July (Issue 31) found that AI was becoming fertile ground for an old problem: predatory publishing and research fraud. Concerningly, AI-generated research has become pervasive and has started infecting legitimate research.

“These [AI-generated] texts, when made available online… leak into the databases of academic search engines and other parts of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication. This development exacerbates problems that were already present with less sophisticated text generators,” according to one research paper.

Two additional challenges include revenue and research impact lost from bots scraping content, and those bots then being unable to determine the content’s quality.

“It doesn’t distinguish between good and bad, indexed and non-indexed research,” said Professor Jutta Haider, a Professor in Information Studies at the University of Borås, Sweden.

Where there’s a problem, there are those willing to fix it, and the following month, we met some of those hunting AI-generated research and trying to correct mistakes. Among the solutions was a constructive use of university silos.

“What do we do when there’s a zombie outbreak? We build walls, we fence ourselves off in a community,” Dr Jake Renzella, Senior Lecturer at the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales, Australia, told QS Insights.

There were plenty of other headlines throughout the year. In the following pages, we’ve included a handful of stories, hand-picked by the team.