Sri Lanka’s leading universities have slipped to their lowest positions in four years in the QS World University Rankings: Asia 2027, with the University of Colombo falling 46 places to 364th.

Colombo nonetheless remains the country’s highest-ranked university for a fifth consecutive year, followed by Peradeniya at 389th and Sri Jayewardenepura at 398th, QS told Mirror Business, the Daily Mirror reported. The three keep Sri Lanka’s presence in Asia’s top 400 at three institutions for a fourth straight edition — but each recorded its weakest placing over that period. Colombo now sits 89 places below the 275th it held in the 2025 edition.

Of the country’s 12 ranked universities, eight declined, two improved and two held steady. The strongest local performer was Moratuwa, up 37 places to 517th; Kelaniya rose from the 731–740 band to 687th.

The scores barely moved. The field did.

Colombo’s overall score slipped only from 39.4 to 39.0, and Sri Jayewardenepura’s from 37.8 to 37.5 — while a typical ranked university improved by about 1.7 points. That gap, rather than any deterioration, is most of the story.

QS was explicit that the roughly 195 new entrants this year were not the main cause: only two debutants placed above Colombo or Sri Jayewardenepura, accounting for about two places of each university’s fall.

“For these two institutions in particular, it is more a question of rivals moving ahead,” QS said.

On percentiles — arguably the fairer measure in a field that has expanded by about three-quarters since 2025, to 1,722 institutions — Colombo outperformed 78.9 per cent of ranked universities, against 79.1 per cent last year and 71.9 per cent in 2025, making this its second-best showing.

Where the ground was lost

Employer Reputation, weighted at 20 per cent, was the main drag: Colombo’s score fell 2.8 points and Sri Jayewardenepura’s 4.3, at a time when most universities edged up. At 192nd, Colombo is now the only Sri Lankan university in Asia’s top 200 on that indicator, compared with five in 2022.

The picture lower down the table is the opposite. The average Employer Reputation score of Sri Lankan entries rose 3.3 points to 35.5, more than six times the regional gain of 0.5 points — all nine universities outside the top three improved.

Every Sri Lankan entry fell in rank on Faculty Student Ratio and Staff with PhD. QS said this did not reflect a shrinking academic workforce: at Colombo, student numbers grew 6 per cent while faculty numbers fell 3 per cent, implying roughly 9 per cent more students per academic. Jaffna’s Faculty Student Ratio score dropped about 24 per cent, from 28.5 to 21.8, largely on rising student numbers.

Academic Reputation, the most heavily weighted indicator at 30 per cent, was the only area where Sri Lanka gained on its peers, with half its entries rising and an average score of 24.8 — about 11 per cent ahead of the regional average.

The international gap

Sri Lankan averages for international faculty (1.8) and international students (3.7) are roughly one-eighteenth and one-eighth of the regional averages of 33.3 and 29.3. Only Peradeniya, 274th for International Research Network, placed inside the top 300 on any of the five global engagement indicators.

QS pointed to Malaysia — which aims to attract 250,000 international students by 2030 — as an example of a system that internationalised by building long-term reciprocal partnerships with government backing, and suggested joint programmes and flying-faculty arrangements as a route open to Sri Lankan universities.

QS Senior Vice President Ben Sowter credited Sri Lanka with holding its ground, noting that “in a year when almost 200 universities have debuted in the rankings, Sri Lanka does well to maintain three universities among the top 400” — but cautioned that the overall trend remains one of decline relative to regional peers, and that improvement would require “new investments in faculty and research and further building research and exchange partnerships globally”.

The University of Hong Kong retained first place in Asia for a second year. India’s IIT Delhi (66th), Pakistan’s NUST Islamabad (76th) and Bangladesh’s University of Dhaka (136th) all rank well ahead of Colombo. The Maldives entered the rankings for the first time.

Note on sourcing

This is a single-source report. The figures and QS’s commentary were given to Mirror Business directly by QS Quacquarelli Symonds; no other verified newsroom had carried the Asia 2027 results for Sri Lanka at the time of writing. Readers searching for this story should note that the separate QS World University Rankings 2027 — the global table, published in June — is a different exercise with different positions, and the two are easily confused.